Red Planet -Torchwood style
by Awatere11
Summary: So this is Red Planet, another sci fi movie I like but ours boys are the main players. A wee bit of smut in the final chapter, not within the story so those of you who don't want to read, still get the whole thing.
1. Chapter 1

Chap 1

A perfect blue marble - clouds, oceans, continents. This is Earth.

The Earth. From space. In all its glory, the most perfect, self-regulating entity you could imagine. We went out there; we turned around; we looked back; we saw it. You'd think we'd behold and learn something.

We didn't.

It was 1961 when we first went into space. There were four billion people in the world. And at a rate that was scarcely intelligible, we began to poison and populate our planet.

The big, sparkling blue marble that is Earth begins to lose its lustre and slowly turns grey. By the year 2000, the population is six billion.

We increased by 80 million people a year. Pumped out our toxins beyond measure. Destroyed our assets killed forests, trees, plants, animals...Anything that couldn't be trademarked and sold at a profit we annihilated without a thought. We killed half of what was on the planet. We didn't care. Right about the millennium, we got another warning...

We killed all the frogs. Every frog on the face of the planet. We'd killed species before, sure, even a species or two. But this time we wiped out an entire race. As the frogs breathe through their skin and react to toxins in the environment faster, this should have been a warning, canary in the coal mine kind of thing.

Nah, we didn't pay any attention to that either. The only people who were really upset were the French. And no one really likes the French.

By 2050 there were 12 billion people. It took us 100 years to go from the Industrial Revolution to putting a man in space. It took us only another 100 to poison and overpopulate the planet so seriously that if we didn't go out and find somewhere else to live, we realized we were gonna die out as a species ourselves in the next two generations.

Oops.

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Torchwood. A spaceship unlike anything you've seen. Thirteen spheres up front, cubical packing. The MEV (Mars Entry Vehicle), a large cylinder behind. The whole thing is slowly turning.

Red, huge, and very close. Mars looms as they settle into orbit.

"Houston, we are go for Mars orbit acquisition." Captain Jack Harkness says into the comms with his usual flare, a grin that is so wide it shines through the connection.

"You are go. Nice flight. Godspeed." Comes back the delayed response from Mission Control.

Engines light up in the back of the craft. The ship heads down towards Mars. Enters orbit. Disappears around the back side.

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A writhing ball of plasma reveals itself to be the sun. The surface roils, waves of energy pass by and a flare starts to grow and expand out from one quadrant like a giant volcanic eruption.

Two pencil pushers at Mission Control stare with mouths agape at the heliostat. Monitors around record the event as well.

"Jesus...It's gotta be 800,000 miles long. It's gonna shut down every comm satellite on this side of the planet." Rhys muttered as alarms start to go off.

"The good news is its directional, most of its gonna miss us." Rhys says calmly to the panel as he shows the screen he had been watching. 

"The bad news" Gwen interrupts her partner, "is it's directional, and most of it's going toward Mars. Sub-light speed. It'll take 40 minutes to get there."

"Let 'em know." Michael Smith, Base Commander demands and then raises an eyebrow when the two look at each other like children caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

"No comm. They're on backside. They'll be clear in...40 minutes." Rhys finally says as he looks at Gwen and she grimaces.

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Dark side of Mars. The Torchwood is a slightly shining speck, moving towards the horizon and light. At 17,000 mph.

Captain Jack Harkness is at the helm. He's got a kind of quiet assurance. You'd like him. Everyone does. Mission co-pilot John Hart is beside and behind him. Jack speaks into a mike to rest of the ship "We have stable orbit. We've got three laps around, ninety minutes each. In four and a half hours, we will launch the Mars Entry Vehicle."

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Ianto Jones, a late replacement for their assigned science officer after a mishap in training, floats in through the hatch in the back. He's been waiting 309 million miles for this, his clever AI lovingly called Myfanwy has been going through her paces and he has just locked her down.

Owen had been scoffing at her, calling her a glorified Pepper Pot and he had taken immense delight in activating her "attack Mode" and watching Owen squeal like a girl as he ran around the room while chased by his wee girl.

"Are we there yet?" he asks with a soft lit that gives away his region of origin.

Owen shakes his head. He's about to respond when they just clear the edge of the planet, lights hit them and... Wham. One light starts to flicker to red. And then another. Some just go off.

"What the hell?" Owen barks as he watches the lights flicker. A seasoned flight officer, he doesn't like the look of this.

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Hart reaches for the Comm as it begins to blare static. "Comms out."

"No Shit!" Jack snarls as he begins to rapidly reset switches. Some hold, some flip back to red. Things are bad, but he's calm. "Single event, upseting everything. All over the board. Latch up. Free flow. We're gonna lose chips. Shut it down."

"Shut it down?" John gapes and Jack doesn't hesitate as he continues to push buttons.

Safety alarms start to go off.

"Everything. SEP, some kind of massive flare." Jack pants as he reaches over John's head to slam his fist into a ceiling panel. The alarms stop.

"Crew, correction, we will launch on this pass. In fact...in five." Jack yells into the comms to alert the ship then turns to see that John is shutting off every system he can get his hands on. Jack reaches to finish it off himself.

"Proton flux. Multiple Event Upsets. John, bye." Jack barks out as he now kicks at a wall panel while slamming buttons.

John is out of his seat and heading back as fast as he can. Jack still struggling with alarms behind him. New alarms sound now as he rushes out, the artificial gravity begins to fail.

The crew are madly scrambling everywhere.

On the Med Deck Chief Science Officer Doc, is pulling himself into a spacesuit.

Popping out of her bunk and into the wall, Toshiko Sato who is the only female on board, grabs a satchel of personal possessions and swims off down an access tube.

Tosh and John rush along, careening off the walls.

Emerging onto the deck, looking absolutely calm, Doc stops at an intercom station, presses a toggle – "Yo, Harkness, you could probably cut off that yowling now. I'm up from my nap."

A moment later, the ship goes silent.


	2. Chapter 2

Chap 2

Inside the Mars Entry Vehicle 6 High G couches are spaced about the interior walls, crew names applied to them. Jack is still absent as Tosh straps herself in. The others stream aboard. Start restraining themselves in as Jack continues to try to shut the ship down back on the flight deck. Some circuits do, others flicker/free flow and refuse to stop. One particular circuit will clear, but only as long as he holds it shut manually - MEV Launch Release. Only takes him a moment to decide.

He's not happy, but tries not to let his concern show as he addresses the crew, "it seems I will not be able to join you and will maintain the manual release for the MEV from the Flight Deck."

"Captain?" John gapes.

He has no time or inclination to engage in discussion about his decision. "You are go for Mars descent, Lieutenant. On my signal."

John powers up the smaller craft. Seals the door. He can't believe he's doing this, but he has no choice. "We are green across the board."

The last of them finish strapping themselves down. John toggles his intercom to Jack, "Promise you won't leave if we don't like it there."

Jack respond with an equality upbeat quip, "I promise sweetie."

Jack clears his throat and tries again, "Lieutenant Hart, you have control authority of the MEV. Now."

He holds the circuit closed and in the pod lights are starting to flicker off on the board. Waiting is not a good plan. John calls out quickly "Crew secure?!"

"Secure." Is repeated four times, Ianto's quietly as he tries to hide his fear. John hits two large buttons on either side of him.

Explosive bolts blow the two halves of the cylinder away. The pod is a honey comb, revealed inside. As this is space, and a vacuum, there is no sound. However, in here, it's LOUD. The pod is blown free of the Torchwood. Again, oddly silent. Small directional jets flare for a moment, starting the pod out of orbit and in free fall towards Mars.

It drops, drops, drops and disappears, friction blazing as Jack watches from the Torchwood. There are still free-flows all over the board. Jack can't get them to shut down. They flicker, pop on and off. Systems start and shut down and start up again all over the ship. Checks the comm again. Still nothing.

In the pod a control panel on the wall flickers. We hear a ticking. Inside the panel, we see the switch sputtering on/off. It fails, arcs. Smoke begins to wisp out.

A red light comes on, on board the Torchwood. A soft humming and Jack turns. It's a smoke warning in sphere six.

Jack rushes through a sphere that's a garden. Another with orchids growing on walls. Artwork on huge LCD screens...Pulls open panels and slaps down banks of breakers as he goes. Rooms turn dark, the artwork disappears. Only small safety lights remain. More alarms.

Jack yanks out a fire extinguisher. Sprays down the offending area. He is thrown across the room by the force of the extinguisher without gravity to brace with. For a moment, though, it looks like he's succeeded. Smoke begins to wisp out again. He pushes over, anchors his feet and jams the nozzle into a fire port. Empties it. This time it seems as if he's triumphed.

And then a gentle voice on the intercom.

 _Fire. Sphere 5. Fire. Sphere 5. Smoke. Sphere 8. Smoke. Sphere 8._

He still doesn't panic. Hurls himself down another access tube and down on the planet a tiny flare of the pod entering the atmosphere would have been seen, if anyone were there to see it. A moment later, a sonic boom reaches the surface.

Jack fights a fire in another sphere. Dark now except for the flickering flames. This time we see them like fairies dancing in the air, lights glowing in the zero G. Smoke's in the air it's getting hard to breathe. He puts out the fire, but from the alarms, it's clear he's now fighting a losing battle.

Jack starts pulling master breakers. Lightbulbs are popping as the power surges. He's surrounded by a cloud of glittering glass fragments. The news is bad. Half of the lights on the emergency action panel are red. He yanks on a spacesuit. Slaps on a small oxygen container. Locks on the waist, wrists. Reaches back to what seems to be a hood. Pulls it over his head, locks the front down and throws the last breaker. Life Support. The ship is now dead, but still burning. He clips himself in with a set of safety straps and...Opens the main hatch.

The venting air manifests in a huge white cloud. Papers, books, cups, clothing flies out as well.

Jack is sucked towards the open hatch. Tethers hold. Watching all his air escape is not a calming moment.

Without oxygen, the fires subside and die. All of them. The ship is still and dead.

Total silence. Fire lights are out. Jack shuts the hatch. Finally he lets himself begin to react. Starts to hyperventilate and shake inside his spacesuit.

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The Pod has crash-landed. It's a wreck. Air bags deflate. Some have been damaged. The Homey comb attempts to open. A figure struggles out of the shattered craft, collapses on the ground.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this." Ianto gasps as he looks up at the sky.

Ianto drifts as his concussion gives him a surreal flashback.

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*********************FLASHBACK*******************

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The air is grey, sleet falls outside the NASA media room window. Stragglers in heavy protective gear struggle through the biting wind to an airlock on the side of the building and join hundreds of journalists in the audience. Lights dim. In front, face lit from below at a podium, Senior Scientist Yvonne Hartman, head of the Space Exploration Office.

"As many of you may know, in 2032 the Space Exploration Office began a series of unmanned flights to Mars."

The entire wall behind her, is a vid screen. As she speaks the images appear.

"It had been determined by 2020 that Mars harboured no life. Although beginning with the same resources as Earth four billion years ago, Mars didn't support any life beyond the microbial stage in the last 300 million years. Nor did it have an atmosphere or climate supportive of human life." She tells her captive audience, "It was, however, concluded that Mars was receptive to terraforming. If we could raise the temperature of the planet by only four degrees, the resultant melting of the ice caps would increase the density of the atmosphere, thus holding greater heat, melting the icecaps further. We could use the greenhouse effect to our benefit. To do this, we needed to increase the oxygen content of the atmosphere. A series of probes were sent, each releasing newer and newer genetically modified lichen and algae designed to stand the rigors of the Martian environment while augmenting the oxygen content of the Martian atmosphere. In the last 28 years, we have sent 2200 probes. The terraforming was initially successful."

She walks to the front of the podium as if she is imparting a secret, "The average temperature on Mars has increased two and a half degrees over the last three decades. The oxygen content began to increase as well. And then eleven months ago, the O2 on Mars suddenly began to decline. Soon after, all the remote sensors on the planet ceased functioning. We have no idea what's gone wrong. We need to know why. Man's very destiny may lie in the answer."

"We are about to embark on the greatest mission of human exploration. By using a number of Heavy Lift Launch Vehicles and a modified close lunar cargo ship, we have created a vessel capable of journeying to Mars."

"Three months ago, Hab-1, an unmanned living environment, was launched. In nine days Ares-1, our first manned mission, will be sent to Mars. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the first men and women to travel beyond the reach of Earth to the next planet in the solar system." Yvonne turns and introduces the crew, "Captain Jack Harkness will supervise the flight component of our mission. Their Captain has 2200 hours in space. He will be assisted by Pilot and Mission Specialist John Hart.

Yvonne steps up to Doc who is glowering at her for placing him in the spotlight, "And we're pleased to have Dr. John Smith come out of retirement as our Chief Science Officer. Doc brings a view as a generalist few can offer, with a Nobel in chemistry and a MacGregor in molecular biology. He was off getting another Ph.D., this time in theology when we asked him to join us."

"Dr. Toshiko Sato, who until recently has held the number two position in the Terraforming Office, is an expert in extremophile and cryptoendolithic biology." She bows to Tosh who blushes and reciprocates.

"Dr. Owen Harper, late of Western BioTech has left the private sector to help us." Yvonne smiles patronisingly at him and Owen grimaces back.

"And we are also joined by Ianto Jones." She places her hand on his shoulder and Ianto looks like a deer caught in the headlights.

John turns to Jack and quietly mutters. "The janitor."

His mic was on. It echoes around the room. But Ianto's too quick to let him try to apologize anyhow. "That's technically space janitor."

The audience titters with mirth and Ianto deadpans, "When the toilet breaks 80 million miles from the nearest hardware store, they call me. Actually, they called me now because then we would really be in the crapper."

The room erupts with laughter and Jack leans out from the line to look at the young man who has raised an eyebrow. Jack wonders if he's part Vulcan.

"To be more precise," Yvonne glares at John who shrugs, "Mr. Jones is the Mechanical Systems Engineer. We're glad to have him along."

Jack wonders if that will be true.


	3. Chapter 3

Chap 3

The MEV is horrendously battered. It's a wonder they're alive. Doc is propped against a rock, moving a device the size of a tablet over his abdomen. It's a kind of combination x-ray/sonogram. Doesn't like what he sees. Puts it aside for the moment without discussing it with the others.

Ianto emerges from the MEV dragging some tools and other salvaged gear.

"What've we got?" Doc asked with a hitch in his breath.

"The radio's dead. Rover's dead. Myfanwy's dead. You give me a shop and three months and I could get this thing set for orbital re-entry. Otherwise...it's staying here." Ianto huffed.

John's climbed to the top of a nearby outcropping of rock. Surveys the area. Red sky, blue clouds, rocks.

"Anything?" Owen calls out as Tosh hovers.

"No."

"Great." Owen growls at John, "We put up with your shit for three hundred million miles, so you could crash-land us on Mars. Just fucking great."

By all rights, son, we should be dead." Doc calls out, "That was a decent piece of flying."

"We have a mission to accomplish, people..." John says with purpose.

"We'll be dead in eight hours anyhow when the air runs out." Owen snarks, "'Cause megapilot missed the landing site. There is no more fucking mission."

That puts it all into perspective.

"So, where the hell are we?" Ianto asks as he tried to bring them back on track.

"The G.P.S. was tied to the radios...which are dead. Transponder on the Hab was tied to the nav computer..." John drones.

"...which is dead. Didn't the boys at NASA pack us a compass?" Ianto finishes for him.

"There's no magnetic core on Mars. Wouldn't do any good." Owen throws out as he eyeballs Doc.

Ianto considers all this for a moment. "I don't think I like this planet."

"Best guess. Where do you think we are?" Owen asks.

Tosh shrugs. As much as you can shrug in a spacesuit.

"Somewhere downrange." Tosh pulls her HHC out of a pocket on her thigh. 2050 descendant of a laptop. Mutters at it. It whizzes past all info graphics, the standard 360 degree pan from the landing site, topographical map of Mars. Zooms in to show where the Hab was deployed.

"Based on the last uncorrupted nav state, and given that we were in a full manual descent with no computer correction, I'd say...in this 60x120 mile ellipse." She shows John.

"Okay. That's big." There's a long moment of resignation.

"We've got every other mission variable in here, we ought to be able to figure aerobrake friction and the speed and orbit of the Ares when we exited. We should be able to close in on the downrange variables. Tighten up the ellipse. It's about the math." Tosh shrugs.

Ianto can't believe it. "This is it. This is that moment they told us about in high school. Where one day again we'd use algebra. And it would save our lives. And I thought they were fucking kidding."

Ianto turns in frustration and walks away. Doc calls to him "Stay in range. A thousand yards. And your radio's line of sight."

"Right, I wouldn't want to get lost." Ianto deadpans as he continues to wander off. We can hear them discussing drag coefficients and whatnot. It just makes him ill.

Ianto stares out at the Martian landscape. It would be quite pretty. Except for the fact he's gonna die here. He's pissed and frightened. Yanks his HHC out. Mutters, images appear. All the Hab details. Stares at the map and then the 360 degree panorama. Back at the map. Back at the panorama. Something about it strikes him. Looks at it some more. He gets up, looks around. Looks around some more. Heads back to the guys...

"I don't think it's about math. I don't like math, so I'm biased. I think it's about the picture." Ianto calls out, as he holds out the picture of the panorama. John dismisses him - he's not a scientist, he's not a pilot, he should leave them alone.

"We're not in that picture. If we were, we'd know where the Hab was. We're trying to figure this out." Owen waves a hand at the picture.

Ianto ignores him, throwing a large rock in the sand, wraps the 360 degree panorama around it. Screen bends and turns translucent as he does.

"Look, say that's the lander. At about 30 degrees in the distance, it sees this mountain with the funny top. And at about 180 degrees it sees this funny set of twin peaks." Ianto points to different things, "Now I see this mountain over there. And these peaks over there behind me almost on a straight line. And then there's this other peak maybe, which would put us on the line, say here. Which leaves the angle to the Hab at about there..."

John and Tosh start to manipulate their HHCs faster than you can follow. Muttering to each other, hand-gesturing, cross-referencing back and forth to the map, as the ellipse shrinks and their landing location is...determined.

"Space Janitor First Class Jones, nicely done." Owen crows.

"The good news is it's an eight-hour walk." John claps his hands.

"There's bad news?"

Doc checks Ianto's wrist monitor. "You've got seven and a half hours of air. Try not to breathe too deep."

"Let's get the hell outta here." Owen prepares to start walking.

Doc struggles to his feet. As the five of them tromp away in the giant landscape Doc looks over at Ianto and remembers their early days entering into this trip.

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*********************FLASHBACK*******************

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The Earth is a distant ball outside the craft.

A large open common space. Empty for the moment. Until Doc and Ianto enter through an access tube. Gravity follows them around as they walk. The rooms cycle around and the computer adjusts to keep their footfalls steady. Floor, ceiling wall...A meter on the wall with a glowing "G" points an arrow the direction of the current gravity.

"Chief Science Officer" Ianto nodded. "This is trippy."

Doc grins. He's been up so many times he's forgotten what it's like the first time. "You'll get used to it. When you get home, it feels weird you can't walk on the ceiling."


	4. Chapter 4

Chap 4

Ianto has his own thoughts running through his head, ironically of the same early days.

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*********************FLASHBACK*******************

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MEV DECK - DAY

Ianto comes in too fast. Stumbles up. It's just confusing. He resets. Opens up a locker, about three feet by three feet. He calls in to what seems to be a large tangle of silver pipes. "Good morning, Myfanwy. Step out carefully, we're in multi-directional gravity."

Myfanwy, the Mobile unit, unfolds and steps gingerly from the cabinet. About waist high, eight legs, stereo camera eyes. Like a big silver spider. Old attachments have been cut off and buffed down. She's a piece of off-the-shelf gear that's been modified. When the light hits her at the right angle, we can see a Torchwood insignia still etched under the refinishing.

"How are we after launch? I'd like to run a systems check." Ianto speaks to the robot as if she were real, "Shall we do the hokey-pokey? Just to satisfy me?"

She rapidly shakes each of her legs in turn. Ianto turns on a wrist panel display. Built into the fabric of his suit. He sees what she sees. "Take a look around."

He flips off the lights. She flicks over to IR, sees just fine in the dark. Turns the lights back on. "And how is your C.P.U. today?"

Hundreds of quick calculations flash by and then - "Good."

"Okay, run the occasional self-test. Let me know if anything's wrong. And back to storage." Ianto tells her and she climbs back into her locker. Ianto shuts the door as the display reads "Good-bye" and winks out.

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Owen has his own memories niggling.

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*********************FLASHBACK*******************

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All six of them are gathered. First dinner in space.

"Any Space Adaptation Sickness? Vertigo? No?" Owen looks around the table, "Liars. You'll wake up all night long thinking you're falling. Promise. I'll hear you scream."

"Status?" Jack asks as he tries to ignore Owen and finds himself looking over the young man who is fiddling with a piece of tech.

"Garden's good." Owen mutters as he still looks around the table.

"Didn't lose a plant." Doc smiles.

"Anything else?" Jack asks as he prepares to leave the table.

Ianto holds back here a little. Not a scientist, not an astronaut. Suddenly he feels like the most inferior member of the crew. "Ahh, Sir...Bunch of the HVACs jammed from the lift-off. Reset 'em. They're fine now."

"I'll tell you what, unless we pass a recruiting station on an asteroid and you sign up for the military, you can call me Jack for the next six months, okay?" Jack smiles as he warms to the man. Maybe it's the accent.

"Okay Sir." Ianto blushes and Jack eyeballs him.

Ianto relents, "Jack."

"Why'd you come, Ianto?" Owen asks suddenly and Ianto starts as he tries to formulate an answer.

"I did two years as a mechanic at NASCAR. A year and a half at McMurdo in the South Pole. Three years on subs. I had the highest military tech ratings you can get. And I went cross-country once with my cousins in a motor home." Ianto shrugs, "This didn't seem so bad."

"That's why they called. Why'd you come?" Jack is interested in the answer so Ianto thinks carefully before giving it.

"You ever been to Europe? Europe's horrible. It's full of stodgy people whose ancestors didn't have the balls to go to America and try something new. Earth is gonna be like Europe. You might visit there and admire some old buildings and crap, but you wouldn't want to live there. This was like getting a call to go with Columbus to America the first time. But harder. How could you not go?"

Owen grins and claps, "I don't like Europe much either, mate. Didn't quite figure it the same way, but damnation, you don't turn down a phone call like that, do ya?"

"You?" Owen asks Jack who is still looking at Ianto.

"I spent my entire life training to fly the biggest, fastest thing you can fly. This is it. It's the best job in the world." Jack then points at John who is feeding his face, "He's going 'cause he got the second best job in space. He's a little pissed about it, but he still came."

"I was never supposed to come. I came 'cause my boss couldn't." Tosh added hers quickly on the hopes that they would move on, "He failed the medical. Heart arrhythmia. So here I am. They tapped me on the shoulder, told me I was going to Mars. I was supposed to be second in charge of the Terraforming office till I died."

Doc's the last. They turn to him. His reason's a little different. "Psalm 107, verse 23 - They that go down to the Sea in Ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep.' So I figured how much wonder for those in space?"

Everyone is stunned and John speaks first, "You're going to Mars because of a poem?"

Doc thinks about it. "Basically."

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Tosh wonders when they became a family.

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*********************FLASHBACK*******************

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DAY 13

There's no gravity up here, equipment is attached to the floor, ceiling and walls. John and Owen are on a large spinning bicycle-driven machine. John's pedalling. By keeping up the speed, he's able to provide enough extra gravity for Owen, on the other side, to lift free-weights. They're both dripping sweat so it must work. TIMER goes off, they slow to a stop. Ianto comes in. He looks a bit uncomfortable. Certainly out of his element. A little, well, puny.

"So...required exercise. Haven't had this since grade school." Ianto says softly to Tosh who is waiting next to him.

"Yeah, you musta been doing some kind of reverse thing where you get small..." John Leers.

John's got years in the gym. Muscles on muscles. Jack enters and takes a two-second evaluation of the situation.

"You're done. You can shower." He demands.

"I'm not done. I was gonna..." John whines.

"No. You're done." Jack barks as he glares at him.

John can't believe he's being thrown out. But he's also a product of the military and couldn't argue if he tried. "Yes, Sir."

He leaves. Ianto feels embarrassed, "You didn't have to do that."

"No. I did. If I didn't nip that in the bud, I wouldn't be doing my job." Jack assures him and feels the need to explain, "Flying this beast is only half the job. The whole job's to get the crew in place in shape to do what they have to do. And the funny thing is, flying's the easy part."

Tosh has shifted closer and wants to comfort Ianto but notices the way the Captain seems to be moving closer as well.

Ianto stands thinking for a moment and then his resentment just bursts out, "I just hate all those fucking guys. I feel like I've spent my entire life being the guy who was hassled in PE. I lost the first girl I ever cared about to some thug who could throw a football farther than I could. It's like women are hardwired to think that guys who are proficient at sports are going to be better providers. It's not like we hunt and kill our own food anymore."

Ianto snorts, "He sells cars for a living now. Cars. I end up working on a project that may save the existence of mankind and he sells cars."

Jack finds this impressively obsessive. "You kept track of him. What happened to her?"

Ianto looks at him blankly.

"The girl." Jack prompts.

"Lisa? I wasn't interested in her once she betrayed me," He has no idea.

"Little competitive?" Jack needles him good-naturedly, "Who's hardwired for what, Cave man?"

Ianto can't help it, he grins, a little blush shows his pleasure at the attention and Tosh grins from the side-lines.

"We're gonna start with the bungees. Try to quit being pissed off you weren't chosen for dodgeball, will ya?" Jack snorts with humour at the glare he receives and turns to Tosh, "coming Ms Sato?"

"Yes" she turns to Ianto, "You really alright?"

"I'll try. Twenty years of hating the bullying motherfuckers is a hard habit to break." Ianto whispers and she pats his arm encouragingly as they begin their team exercise.


	5. Chapter 5

Chap 5

At the crash site it's quiet. And then, a slight grinding noise fills the air as Myfanwy lies on the deck beside her storage container. A leg twitches. Then another. She gets delicately to her feet. She wriggles once as if she was stiff and cautiously makes her way outside.

She scans the area. Analyses. Turns and heads off into the landscape.

A landscape so huge, it's hard to grasp. Five tiny antlike figures progress across the wide expanse. They've already come a long ways. Beginning to fan out. Pause and regather. Ianto stops to catch his breath.

"How you doing?" Owen asks as he wanders past.

"Little tired. I'm okay." Ianto mutters.

"You should have put more treadmill time in." John declares imperiously.

"Go fuck yourself." Ianto mutters as he stumbles along.

"What'd you say?" John stops walking and swings to glare at Ianto.

"Ahhh...Musclehead, go fuck yourself?" Ianto repeats calmly.

"Guys..." Tosh warns, reaches out, checks their wrist monitors.

"We're doing fine." Owen tells her, "In point of fact, he's using less O2 than you are. We can stop a minute. Unless you two want to shout at each other and use up your air."

"Sorry." Ianto sighs.

"Fine. I'm sorry, too." John huffs.

No one's sorry. They rest. Use the moment to look around. It's pretty astounding. Doc uses the time to re-scan his abdomen. Puts the device away again. He's in pain but refuses to acknowledge it.

"How you doing?" Ianto asks, having noticed the covert scan.

"Things are as they are." Doc says in his usual cryptic way. "Lord. Look at it, we're on Mars. Pretty damn amazing."

"It' weird. There's nothing here." Tosh says softly.

"It's Mars." Owen scoffs, "What the hell do you want?"

"No, I mean there's not even a trace of the algae." She frowns and kneels down, examines a rock. Nothing.

"Even if it all died, there'd be something - a dried algal mat, traces on the lee sides, something." Owen looks around as he sees that she's right. Nothing. "She's right. We sent up fifty-two varietals. Blue-green, black, orange. Anhydriobiosics, chemotrauphs, even a thibacillus that could grow autotrophically on elemental sulphur. Not only are they dead, they're all just gone. I don't get it. It's like they were scoured off the rock."

"Maybe there was never anything in this valley." Ianto suggests.

"If we are where we think we are" Owen mutters as he checks his map that appears on a small screen, he mutters to it, overlays of all the algae and lichen that were on Mars appear. "You're right Tosh. This valley was covered with blue algae a month ago. Valley back one should have been covered in an orange-red plants. She's right. It's weird. There should be something."

They crest a small rise. Below lies a valley that closes down quickly into an extremely narrow canyon. Owen and John check their HHC maps.

"This, however, makes sense." Owen turns to John and shows him the readings.

"Debris apron. Delineated valley fill. Depositional fan..." John double-checks with Doc. Seems they're going the right way.

Doc leans back heavily against a boulder, "Good. You gotta keep moving..."

"And what're you gonna do, sit here and watch? You getting old and lazy?" Ianto scolds with open concern and he steps over to Doc to check him over.

"My spleen's ruptured. There's significant internal bleeding. I'm not going any further. And trying to carry me will slow you down just enough that we can all die." Doc says calmly as Owen starts to panic and tries to assess for himself.

"We'll get you to the Hab." Ianto looks back desperately in the direction they travelled from,"Lock out the spine impulse and you can walk one of us through it."

"No. You won't." Doc says sadly as he looks up at John.

John takes charge. It's his mission now, Jack said so. "We build a litter. We take him."

"Chain of command once we hit the surface starts with me." Doc growls angrily, "And I'm ordering you to go, Lieutenant. Now."

"I've only got about forty minutes." He speaks softly to Ianto who is in shock, "There's really not much pain. Put me around the corner where I've got a view."

"They lift him to the other side of the rock. Ianto lingers, stricken ad speechless.

"It's okay. I'm not sorry I came." Doc reaches for his hand.

Ianto takes one last look over his shoulder as they trudge away from their fallen crew member.

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Torchwood, this Houston, do you read? Torchwood, this Houston, do you read?" Rhys shakes his head as they fail to connect.

"What do you want to do?" Gwen asks nervously and Yvonne sighs.

"Get every dish in the Deep Space Network pointed at Mars." Yvonne grimaces, "Declare a spacecraft emergency."

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Doc has toppled over. Still, silent. Just the small plume of red dust that was unsettled by the impact of his body with the ground.

No time to mourn.


	6. Chapter 6

Chap 6

The four of them trudge up a long hill. The summit is a dozen steps away. John is the first to reach it. He looks out over the horizon. Turns back to the others "You're gonna like this."

Not that far in the distance, in the valley below, they can see the lab shining in the sun.

"Twenty-six months of food, water and air, gentlemen." Owen crows as he punches the air with relief.

"We're saved..." Tosh can't believe it and stumbles after the others.

They run down the hillside. For the first time they get a feeling for the .38 gravity. Bouncing sixteen footsteps. Like little kids as they come bounding down. They keep running and leaping and coming. Until the first one begins to slow. It's not from exhaustion. And then the second and the third. It's from horror.

The Hab is in tatters. Roof is gone, walls are gone. Nothing but the titanium ribs remain. They approach. The insides are not much better. It's destroyed. There's no food. There's no water. There's no air.

They search. The news doesn't improve.

"What the fuck happened here?" John asks with confusion.

"Jesus..." Ianto breathes as he backs away to crumble to the ground where he sits string at the carnage.

Owen continues to look around for a moment. It doesn't matter what happened. It's over. Shakes his head at Ianto.

"How's your air?" Tosh asks softly and the men look at their monitors.

"Twenty-two minutes." Ianto mutters and looks over at Owen.

"I'm not much better." Owen agrees.

"What the fuck..." John yells as he kicks angrily at what's left of the structure. Storms off.

It takes Ianto a moment to process it, but..."We're all gonna die, aren't we?"

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Pitch black except for the lighted panels like flat glow sticks he's stuck around the room. He cracks another one on as he floats in his flight suit.

Jack's jumped the circuits. Multi-meters stick all over the place. Trying to reboot the entire ship. Checks his load, balances one more jumper, and throws a breaker. The Vessel sighs and flickers with life, momentarily, before it dies again. He checks a meter, changes a jumper, tries again. This time the vessel flickers, then laminates as she comes back on-line. The systems begin to come alive around him. Panels light up, turn from red to green. Lights start to come on.

Gravity returns.

Jack moves through his prison. The place is a mess. Soot and fire stains in some spheres. Smoke damage in all. Flowers destroyed. The garden is half-wrecked. He manually opens a set of valves in one room. Air pumps in from an emergency supply. He checks a meter in his hand, checks again to be sure. Folds back the helmet of his suit. Breathes.

Jack tries to bring the rest of the ship back to life. Half a dozen systems are just simply dead and have to be locked out. Things are not good. Light's beginning to come up. Moments away from entering front-side orbit. Jack opens a panel marked OBS and throws a series of switches.

Door slides open outside the vessel. A small optical receiver clears the dark side and bursts into the light.

On a large vid-screen, Jack can now scan the surface to about a one meter resolution. Searches. Starts wide, scanning the edge of the horizon as it comes into view.

Picks up the glint of the MEV. Zooms in. At first there's nothing but the crashed MEV in profile.

Then the severity of the damage comes clear. Jack tries not to react. Nothing else is there. No sign of activity or escape. The footprints are beyond the resolution of the camera. There's no reason to believe anything but they're all dead.

Jack takes a moment to grieve.

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Owen and Tosh sit on rocks nearby. Not exerting themselves. Checking their monitors.

"Maybe we got what we deserved. We ignored science and truth on one planet and poisoned it beyond repair." Tosh says sadly, "Then tried to get science to save us on another. Maybe it's the inconsistency that did us in."

"That's what they call the datum." Tosh is pointing to a depression nearby, "Sea level. If there was a sea. Or when there was a sea, that's where it was. You can tell 'cause the sand was created by what's called the fluvial process where water breaks rocks into smaller and smaller pieces. We're the first men on Mars. Even if it isn't gonna last long."

She looks at Ianto who is sitting with his eyes closed, bot loking at anything except for the inside of his eyelids, "Would you rather I shut up so you can die quietly?"

"Nah, you can keep talking. It's kinda peaceful." Owen sighs.

Behind them, headed towards a ridge of rocks, we can see a lone figure making its way along.

It's Ianto. He steps around the ridge. We can hear his comms click and static sounds as he loses line of sight communication with the others.

Up ahead of him, standing on the edge of an enormous drop-off, just staring out into space, is John. His back is to us. Owen walks towards him. John still doesn't hear.

John's radio is off. Classical music in his helmet. A 3000 foot drop at his feet. It is magnificent. As Ianto approaches and John remains unaware, the scene seems less and less innocuous.

Ianto just walks right up beside him and stares out at the chasm as well. John finally sees him and lowered the volume in his helmet. They stand there silently for a moment. John has some kind of weak-ass epiphany.

"Look, I'm sorry. I owe you an apology. I've been a dick. I pick on people who are weaker than I am." John says softly to Ianto who looks at him with surprise.

It's way too little, way too late. But Ianto doesn't let on. Just nods. As if he's forgiven him. Then ha his one moment of clarity.

"Fuck you. Fuck you. I'm gonna die. But I'm gonna spend the next five minutes of my life completely satisfied knowing you die with me." Ianto snarls as he turns to walk away from the last bully he has to encounter in his fucked up life.

"I've considered these last few moments as well little squirt. No, you won't, because…" John steps of the ledge an Ianto cries out as he lunges for him, catching his hand.

Ianto stumbles back to the others. He can hear over the comms as he approaches.

"Johannes Kepler was the first to accurately map the orbit of the planet. In 1609." Owen is infirming Tosh.

"John's dead." Ianto gasps as he reaches them.

They turn. But not surprised. They just figure he -

"Chewed through his air. Huh? Told him to slow down" Owen sighs.

"He threw himself off the cliff." Ianto says with a hitch in his breath as he holds up the glove still in his hand.

"Ouch." Owen snorts, no tears for that one!

Tosh bows her head down for a moment, overcome. But it's not John. It's the bigger picture "It's not often you get to fail when 12 billion people are counting on you."

Ianto's got more pressing problems. Checks his wrist. Unnerved. "I'm at under a minute here. You guys know what this is gonna be like?"

"Hypoxia?" Owen is speaking in a dreamy voice as he settles to wait for his own feelings of release, "Dizzy. Skin'll tingle. Vision narrows. Then anoxia. Shock, convulsions, acidosis."

"Gonna hurt?" Ianto hates that he sounds afraid but sees Tosh's face mirror his fear.

"Yeah." Owen sighs.

An alarm sound on Ianto's sensor. He starts to gasp. Opens his mouth wide. Sucking in and out air that's worth less and less to his body.

He begins to claw at the air. It's not pretty to watch. Spins about seeking some release. None forthcoming. Claws some more. Falls to his knees. The others can barely watch. They know they're next.

Ianto's growing more claustrophobic and crazed. Falls the rest of the way to the ground. Still clawing at the air. It's horrible to see. And in one last desperate, angry, trapped-feeling move, reaches up and unhooks the front of his helmet and throws it back. Tosh begins to cry softly. Ianto shudders. Croaks out a faint epitaph as he collapses.

"Fuck this planet."


	7. Chapter 7

Chap 7

And Ianto's still. Still. And then in a last reflexive shudder. Gasps. Gasps again. Takes in the worthless Mars atmosphere. And right when we think it's entirely over...Takes in some more. Breathes again. And again. Opens his eyes.

"I'm not dead."

The other two are watching in amazement.

"I'm not dead. It's like being at high altitude. There's not much air here. But..." Takes him a minute to catch his breath, "but...We're not gonna die."

Owen's suit alarm sound. He doesn't screw with gasping in the suit. Just opens the damn thing up and prays. Breathes. Raggedly.

"It ain't much. But it'll do." Owen gasps as he looks around, puzzled. "What the hell's going on here?"

Tosh's ALARM GOES OFF as well. Much more tentatively she removes his helmet. Breathes. "I thought we'd be dead."

"I thought we'd be dead." She repeats with awe.

They all breathe the thin Martian air for a moment.

"God, if John had only waited five more minutes. What a waste..."Ianto swallows.

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Static on the Torchwood, on the comm clears. A brief caesura then -

"Copy." Jack barks.

"Roger, Torchwood. Good to hear from you. We believe you may have suffered a proton field upset. What is your status?"

Silence. Silence. Jack struggles to maintain control. Tear runs down. Takes a deep breath.

"MEV launched. Radio contact zero. Visual shows crash site, one body, no motion. Believe entire crew to be End of Mission. Torchwood systems check at below 70 percent. Telemetry to follow." he punches a button. Starts to upload it to them. "Air purge in fire control degraded orbital path. Current orbit unstable. Thirty-two hour projected failure. Do you copy, Houston?"

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The telemetry has come in. Rhys puts it up on the common vid-screen. Ship status and all the failures are displayed. It's a disaster.

"Roger. We copy that." Rhys says sadly. He lets go of the mike. Can't help himself. "Jesus fucking God."

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*********************FLASHBACK*******************

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Dark. Someone moves along Torchwood's gantries. And emerges into and observational sphere. An icosahedral slice has been removed from one side and replaced with optical glass. A billion stars are brighter and more numerous than you've ever imagined. Ianto comes in, bumps smack into Doc. Thought he was alone.

"Sorry" Ianto says automatically.

"Lots of room." Doc smiles. He had been having a quiet conversation with his son while comms were still viable, Rhys was his only child and leaving him hurts.

They lean back against the "floor" for a moment and stare out at a billion and a half stars.

"Know the stars at all?" Doc asks forgetting the comms were still open.

"Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Cetus, Lepus, Canis Minor. We're looking at what you'd see south around midnight, mid-May if we were on Earth. At about 42 degrees." Ianto grins as he points.

He's not showing off. He just really does know. Doc looks at him, surprised.

"My grandfather taught me to sail when I was a kid." Ianto smiles softly as he recalls a happier time in his life, "He made me learn the stars in case all the G.P.S. satellites fell out of the sky at once. He said anyone who put his life in the hands of anything run by batteries was a jackass."

"He sounds like quite a guy." Doc smiles back.

"He didn't like what he called the easy answer or the quick fix. He didn't want to own anything he couldn't repair himself." Ianto frowns as he looks around at the tech surrounding them, "And, oh yeah, everything automatic sooner or later fails automatically, usually during or immediately before a crisis. He had a lotta damn sayings."

Ianto runs his face, "He wouldn't've approved of this."

"Going to Mars?" Doc asks.

"No. That we killed off half the living things on Earth. That after we all but destroyed one planet with global warming, we're trying to bring another to life the same way. Kinda tricky, don't you think?" Ianto turned to face him, "He woulda said we were asking for trouble."

"It looks like we got trouble. That's why they sent us." Doc snorts with good humour. A beat. They go back to staring at the heavens.

"I don't really get it. You quit being a scientist? You went back to school to study God?" Ianto finally asks and Rhys holds his breath in the hopes his father will give an answer other than the shrug and change of subject he got when he asked the same question.

"I just realized science couldn't answer any of the really interesting questions." Doc answered, "There are values that are fundamental to an adequate apprehension of the world in which we live that can't be expressed by equations or experiments. In that, you see the hand of God.

Acknowledgment of basic values. Love, kindness, joy. Science doesn't have much use for these. Look, ugly theories are wrong. We know it by insight. Science doesn't want to accept that. We live in a moral world and have moral knowledge that tells us that love and truth are better than hatred and lies. But it's modern to think this is little more than genetic imprinting or a tacit communal cultural agreement. That's not a world I cared to live in anymore."

Doc stares back into the void. This is not the kind of conversation he's used to.

"I asked my grandfather once if God existed. He played me Brahms' Third. Then he asked me what good it was? Or was it just vibration." Ianto mutters.

"What good is beauty?" Doc tried to follow.

"He said if a man could listen to Brahms and not believe in God, he was a fool." Ianto laughed softly.

"I think I woulda liked your grandfather." Doc smiles at the stars.

"You didn't come on this trip because of science at all, did you? That's why they let you come, but you're going to Mars to prove to yourself God exists." Ianto accuses with a soft grin.

"Yup." Doc snorts and Rhys can't believe what he is hearing.

"Maybe I'll pick up a rock and it'll say so on the bottom 'Made by God.'" Doc laughs and Ianto huffs.

"Maybe God's more subtle than you are" Ianto laughs. "You think we're doing something we shouldn't, Buddy, messing with another planet?"

"If so, it's because we're supposed to find something out." Doc formulates an answer he can live with to, "Let's say we didn't. And we finished poisoning off the Earth and everyone was dead in a hundred years. Then what was the point of any of it? Music, art, beauty, love? All gone. The Greeks, the Romans, the Enlightenment, the Constitution, people dying for freedom, ideas? None of that meant anything? I'd rather go out and make a mistake than live in a world that bleak."

"No one said jack to me about the Greeks and Romans. Shit, I just came along to fix stuff." Ianto gapes with mock horror.

"Fooled ya, didn't we. It's okay. No one told the others either." Doc assures him. There's a quiet moment. They just came up to stare at the stars. Wasn't expecting all this.

"There's a reason the planets go around the stars in exactly the same way electrons go around the nucleus of the atom. It's not an accident. There's a design at the bottom of all this. God's watching over you." Doc wonders.

"I just wish I didn't think he was chuckling." Ianto answers and they both laugh heartily as Rhys closes his connection quietly, satisfied that his father had a friend up there to help him.

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Oi! SD4IANTO …. Spoiler alert …. I DID PUT IT IN! hahahahahha, wait for it babe in Chaps 11/12.


	8. Chapter 8

Chap 8

The three teammates are still stunned over the fact they're alive.

"There shouldn't be enough oxygen on Mars to do this." Tosh marvels.

"We never even got close to a breathable atmosphere. Then the levels started to drop and the sensors all died. I don't understand what's going on here." Owen agrees.

Ianto is rummaging through the wreckage of the Hab. It's been devastated.

"Wattya lookin' for?" Owen asks as Ianto unearths a tangle of wire and chewed-up circuits.

"This." Ianto sighs. He tosses it aside. It's worthless. "It used to be the radio. I don't mean to piss on the parade, guys, but no one knows we're here. Don't you see? The good news is we can breathe. The bad news is, unless we can tell somebody, now we get to starve to death. The only mission left is rescue."

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The schematic Jack sent back to Earth is on the screen here as well. The ship is fucked-up bad.

"The ground crew's dead, your orbit's unstable, and you're gonna burn in less then a day and a half." Gwen informs him, as if he didn't already see that for himself.

"Let's get you home."

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The three of them rummage through the ravaged structure. News isn't good.

"We could head back to the lander, try to make something work there." Owen offers.

"It's six hours back." Ianto groans, "And it all ran through the main computer which was half-fried and dropped from a great height."

Shakes his head no. That isn't gonna help. Then Tosh, of all things, grins." Gotta think about this scientifically. There's another radio. Two kilometers from here."

"I didn't see any stores on the way over. I miss a Radio Hut?" Ianto asks with a raised eyebrow that amuses her.

"We sent it here. Twenty years before you were born. In 1997. Think where we are..." she prods.

Owen suddenly gets her reasoning, "We're right over the edge from the Ares Vallis. The Sojourner site."

They both struggle to their feet as Ianto watches.

"There was a high-density ridge ringing the valley. The algae never took there." Owen says as he checks his watch. "We still might have a chance this pass. We wait long..."

They start to run towards a ridge to west. Sun hangs low in the sky. Only an hour or so of day left.

They stand with a goofy look on their faces. Like kids at Disneyland the first time. They're standing there looking at The little rover.

"All those damned named rocks. Our first big visit to Mars." Owen mutters. The reverie is over quickly. Ianto tosses down his bag of tools. Walks over, kneels beside Sojourner (the rover).

"Sorry about this." Ianto says and he pats it once and starts screwing off the cover. Tosses another tool to Owen. They rip the panels off everything around the aerial.

"It's a fifty-year-old off-the-shelf computer radio modem on a frequency that we're not using for this mission." Tosh kneels by Owen with a hand on his shoulder to look over the parts now displayed.

"Then why are we bothering?" Owen asks.

"Cause I'd rather die doing something than just sitting there." Ianto snarks back.

Half an hour later and Ianto has cobbled together a radio from 50-year-old parts. Owen holds the solar panels at the sun while Ianto carefully removes one of his two suit-radio microphones. Checks with a meter, then solders it onto his jerry-rigged radio.

"Testing, testing..." He adjusts a tiny port as he continues to call out. A green LED comes on, flickering with his voice.

"Does it work?" Tosh is too scared to look, kneeling with her back to the two madmen.

"Well, the little green thing lights up. I don't know if it works..." Ianto speaks into the little mic "This is Torchwood ground crew, come back. This is your ground crew, do you copy?"

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Various return scenarios are flickering on different vid screens on board the Torchwood as Jack tries to keep up.

"Okay, scenario three calls for you to lock out systems 17, 22 and 40." Rhys instructs and Jack tries it.

"No joy." He resets everything. "Maybe we're trying to be way too subtle. Why don't we just jettison the damn tank?"

"Because the margins for error are so small. There's enough fuel to get you home, then if you don't sneeze. It makes us nervous." Rhys sighs as Jack has asked this already.

"You want nervous." Jck huffs.

Over in the corner, Gwen is listening to something on her headset that's blowing her mind. She starts waving three fingers frantically at the others. They don't respond fast enough for her. She reaches over and patches someone into the comm link. A new voice breaks into the conversations. The accent's Australian.

"Right, right. Commander Harkness?"

"This is a restricted, encrypted frequency. Who is this?" Yvonne demands as she starts from behind Rhys' chair.

"This is Hank Osterbee in Canberra. Deep Space Network, mate. I've got a call for you."

"A call for me?" Jack scoffs.

"Right. From the surface of Mars. I'm routing it through. Direct frequencies follow."

There's CRUNCH OF STATIC, then Ianto's voice comes through crystal clear "Commander Harkness?"

"You're alive? You're alive?!" Jack sobs as the mission control deck bursts into applause.

"We're at sixty percent. Lieutenant Hart and Doc are gone." Ianto says sadly, "Oh, and by the way, we can breathe."

"You can breathe?!" Rhys interrupts with wonder, his father's death already settled in his heart. His father's friend now his concern.

"Not real well, but yeah." Ianto answers, "Hey, Jack...We've changed our mind. Get us outta here. We'd like to come home."

If the room was at a standstill before, now it's frozen. Is there hope?


	9. Chapter 9

Chap 9

"If they can breathe, can we live there?" Gwen turns to Yvonne.

"No. Ninety percent of the algae's gone. It's some kind of freak anomaly. Mars is a dying planet. Just like Earth." She shakes her head.

"They're breathing. It coulda worked. Dammit, it coulda worked..." Rhys wonders softly.

"It doesn't matter. They're going to die tonight anyhow. In an hour, the sun sets on Mars. It's going to be minus 140. They cannot survive in the open. They're going to die." Yvonne barks. Yow. Everyone shuts up. It's ugly but true.

"She's right. You can walk across the South Pole, long as you stay moving and you're wearing insulating clothing - the suits'll work - you can stay warm. But once they stop moving, without shelter, they're gonna die." Another scientist agrees.

"His orbit could degrade at any time. He could auger in and burn while they chat about old times and freeze to death. It's a waste. We should just bring her home." Gwen refers to their Vessel still waiting to return with her information to provide answers.

Rhys doesn't love it, but "We can get a free return trajectory now. He's got enough food and water to bring one person back."

"You're not wrong." Gwen nods.

"Commander, this is Mission Control." Rhys returns to the mic.

"No."

"Sir?"

"I'm not stupid, Rhys, I know what the question is. I'd ask it if I was there. And the answer is no. So let's move on" Jack snarls down the comm link.

After giving them a moment to settle, Jack continues voicing his decision, "By my calculations, if I ditch my reserve tank now and commit to a three-second apogee burn, I stabilize my orbit for another eighteen hours. I'd like someone to check the numbers as my apogee's in seven minutes."

Rhys has to grin. It's gonna drive him crazy and it's exactly what he'd do. Before any of them can bitch and whine "Come on, people, you heard the man, let's get on it."

The techs begin calculating madly.

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The crew is coming down a rise toward the Hab. Carrying the radio. Walking back quickly. Sun is flat over the horizon. Shadows are long, already getting cold. You can see their breath.

"There's some concern at Mission Control. About the weather." Jack is talking to them.

"It's gonna rain?" Ianto deadpans, comically scanning the clouds.

"It's gonna get a little chilly." Jack huffs with amusement. He is really getting to like this guy.

"I could see that. It's dropped about fifty degrees in the last half hour. We figure a hundred below fairly soon." Tosh agrees.

Jack is doing his best to keep the tone light. But he's gotta know whether or not he thinks he's gonna live or die.

"It would have been nice to be in the Hab. And there ain't no other motel to check into." Ianto snarks and Jack smiles softly.

"You have a plan?" Jack asks softly, "Any thoughts on how you might...stay alive?"

They're back at the Hab now. We can't quite tell what's going on, but Owen and Tosh are busy doing something noisy and furious in the background as Ianto scans the horizon. Crashing, bashing, breaking. Owen flicks open an entrenching tool. Thumbs a button, edge whizzes by like a tiny chain saw. Chews through something and...

"Yeah..." Ianto grimaces as he glances to his left, "Kinda."

Behind Ianto is a whoooosh of flame as Owen gets the debris he's piled in the middle of the Hab to light. He's got stacks of additional fuel nearby.

"We're gonna have a 75 million dollar campfire." Ianto crows as he turns at the sound of the small explosion.

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The sun sets. First sunset on Mars man has seen. Red upon red upon red. Fire burns behind them. Sky turns black. Fast. A billion stars. And then a meteorite begins to fall. It's huge. It's red. It explodes.

"What the hell was that?" Ianto sits up from the rock he was leaning against with shock.

"He ditched the 'B' tank. He must be figuring there's an even chance we'll live through the night." Tosh says softly as she settles against Ianto's side for warmth and Owen shuffles in behind her.

The Torchwood lights up and burns for three long seconds. And off.

Jack checks the gauges. Eight litres was burned. "Hell, what's eight litres? "

"It'll either save their lives or I've screwed up getting home and I'll spend the next three hundred years circling this planet." Jack mutters then stops and laughs, "Talking to myself, first sign of madness,"

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Owen pokes at the flames. They're spread out and low. Flickering yellow and blue. "I think we'll make it through. There's so little O2, this is gonna burn real slow."

Ianto picks up a piece of scrap, about to feed it into the flames, then stops, examines it by the light of the fire. It looks like someone took a rasp to it. He gets up, turns on a suit light and looks over the remaining ribs of the structure. "What happened to this place? Everything but the titanium supports were just chewed up. Could a dust storm've done this?"

"No prevailing pattern to the damage. I don't know what could've done it." Tosh answers.

Nor does it matter right now. They sit back around the fire and relish the warmth. Out in the darkness, past a rise, something catches Ianto's eye. A flash, a reflection. Of the fire? On what? And then it's gone. He doesn't bother to mention it. Writes it off.

Behind a hill, Myfanwy crouches in the dark. Pops up again, looks over, sees the three crew and the fire. Lowers back down - you'd swear she was thinking - then silently ambles away.


	10. Chapter 10

Chap 10

BACK AROUND FIRE

The weird tableau of three people in spacesuits around a campfire on Mars.

"You still think we had any business coming to Mars? Screwing with stuff? Trying to spread life? You think maybe God's teaching us some hard-ass lesson?" Ianto asks.

Tosh just makes some kind of weird gulping noise and turns away. They let her be.

"God?" Owen snarks, "You talked to Doc too much on the trip over. I don't mean to burst your bubble, but God's the retreat of the ignorant, the weak and the hopeless."

"I bet you don't believe in Santa. And you're no fun at all at Christmas." Ianto hurls back,"Not everything gets an explanation you can write down as a formula."

"Mate, I'm a scientist. A geneticist, as good as they come. I write code, just like a hacker. Four elements, A.G.T.P., in different orders, back the genome. And your kidneys work or you grow a sixth finger. I line up unconscious atoms and they give rise to conscious beings. It's like if I stacked up a bunch of rocks in the right order and they become a dog. I do that. I chose when, I chose where, I chose how many fingers. I just don't hold with mystical explanations for science, with organized religion, buildings with different symbols on 'em. You spot God, you lemme know. Till then, I put my trust in my three Ph.D's." Owen spouts, "But I think life's an amazing thing. And I believe that when you get it you should grab it with both hands and live as much of it as you can. Which is why I am not happy about losing it on this damn ugly planet."

Owen shuts his eyes.

Ianto sighs as he looks up at the night sky and remembers his last alone moment with the captain.

.

.

.

*********************FLASHBACK*******************

.

.

.

Ianto comes in to the grooming quarters. His timing, depending how you look at it, is very good or very bad. Jack steps out of the shower. To dry off. It's too late for Ianto to stop or recoup. He has to tough it out and try to act like an adult. Jack sees his discomfort. He's amused.

"It's okay. I had a brother." Jack assures him.

I have two brothers." Ianto gives in and glances down, "Neither of them were this fine."

Then he blushes and Jack has a moment of clarity. He's not the only one who feels something here.

"The only way this works, is if we both make believe it doesn't matter." Jack offers.

"I tried. I really tried." Ianto whispers as they make eye contact, "Maybe I should go fix something."

"Maybe you should." Jack laughs as Ianto hesitates, leaves. .

.

.

.

Ianto's half filled with regret, half annoyed with himself. Sighs, shuts his eyes, and tries to get some sleep.

.

.

.

Place is ragged at Mission Control. Coffee on the workstations, techs as unshaven and beat as the crew on Mars.

"All right, people, we bought ourselves another eighteen hours in orbit. The crew's burning pretty much what we've got on the surface so they don't freeze solid. So whatever we can come up with..." Rhys looks to Gwen.

She sees his grief appearing and continues his train of thought, "...has got to work before the sun sets again tomorrow and they freeze to death anyhow."

"What else is on Mars?" Rhys shakes it off.

"Rocks." Andy says from the science table, "Sand."

"The janitor just built a radio out of a fifty-year-old Rover mission. Now, what else is on Mars?" Rhys demands angrily.

Mars maps come up on all their PIMs. There are things on the surface. Marked with various symbols. Leftovers from other missions.

"We sent a dozen probes even before the biologics started up. Eight were return missions." Andy mutters.

"And they're back." Yvonne throws up her hands.

"There's a Viking lander..." someone calls out.

"2,200 kilometres away." Andy shoots them down.

Silence. They all stare at the PIMs. And then Rhys turns to a nearby TECH "S.Y.F."

He stares at him with confusion. "Slap your forehead?"

"We're not the only people who sent stuff to Mars." Rhys answers as he toggles switches, other overlays come up on the maps. New colours. New symbols.

"The Twenties were nothing but unmanned sample return missions," Gwen says with hope as she sees where her partner is going with this, "Everyone wanted to bring back a bucket of Mars rocks."

They find something near the Hab.

"There was Euro-Malaysian sample return mission 2018." Rhys points to something with hope.

"Checking..." Andy mutters as he slams a keyboard furiously.

"It blew up on attempted return." Yvonne says softly, already knowing the answer.

Looking further afield, they find something else.

"It ain't close, but there's an Uzbecki S.R.M. that failed to launch." Andy offers with a groan, "An Uzbecki probe from 2032."

"Is it viable? Can we get plans?" Rhys demands.

"It was built at the Cosmos factory in Gagarin in 2031." Andy is reading quickly, his eyes scanning his screen, "The factory closed eight years later. And then it burnt down."

"All right, that's the end of that." And then Andy spots a detail that means something to him. "It was designed by Aleksandr Ivanovich Borokovski. He was the last of the greats in the Russian space program."

"Is he still alive?" Rhys asks, Andy's PIM flickers madly as he mutters at it.

"There's no closing date on his bio." Andy confirms, "He'd be in his seventies."

"Find him." Rhys yells, "Somebody get on the line to Kazakhstan."

"This is insanity. A thirty-year-old lander built in a factory that doesn't exist anymore." Gwen says softly but Rhys bats her away.

"Found him!" Andy yells, "He emigrated. He runs a deli in Brooklyn."

.

.

.

An hour later there is a low hum of conversation, a bunch of the workstations are vacant, techs sleeping in cots nearby. BOROKOVSKI, in his best suit, 20 years old, comes in led by two NASA flunkies. Unhooks his filtration mask. Vindicated.

"All right, I am Borokovski." He growls "I am here."

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.

.

They hear a sound out in the darkness. Something metal on rock.

Ianto whistles.

Myfanwy whistles back. A moment later, she walks into the firelight.

"Way to get here, sweetie." Ianto laughs with joy. "How you doing?"

He looks her over with his suit-light. "Kinda banged up, huh? She seems a little outta whack. Let's check you out... On your back."

She obeys. Puts her limbs in the air.

"Processor's damaged." Ianto mutters, "She still navigate for us until she breaks down for good."

"We wait 'til she breaks down, that drone'll crash. Let's yank her Mars positioning system now" Owen demands and one of her legs twitches.

"But that'd be killing her." Ianto argues.

"Want me to pull the plug?" Owen offers, and what happens next happens very fast... Myfanwy slams him with the arm nearest him. The force of the blow knocks him ten feet. With her two back legs, Myfanwy grabs Owen. Squeezes him. Looks like she's gonna squeeze the life out of him... Then uses her legs to throw him. A very long way. He lands hard and crumples. Another arm already has Tosh pincered by the wrist. Twists it. Forces her to the ground in pain. The way a martial artist would.

Ianto madly punches buttons on his sleeve unit. "Myf, stop! don't hurt him!" And hey, she stops. Withdraws her arm. And moves off into the darkness.

Ianto goes to help Tosh. Owen stumbles back, terrified. "What's going on?"

"She's in military mode. The crash must've flipped her back... Help me get her to the fire."

"Why'd she turn on us?" Tosh asks as she blinks.

"We tried to take her eyes. That made us the enemy." Ianto snapped.

"You can't override her?"

"I tried." Ianto groaned, "She won't respond."


	11. Chapter 11

Chap 11

Sky's beginning to grow light. Last of the fire wavering out. Nothing left of the Hab but a few metal ribs.

Ianto stirs. Stiff from sleeping on the ground. The other two follow. They've lived through the night. Ianto walks off twenty paces. He's unlocked the top and bottom of his suit and dropped the trousers to his knees. "I'm the first man to piss on Mars."

Giggling, the others follow suit on the other side of the Hab. A beat, then "Damn."

"Whoa." Ianto laughs as he agrees.

"You sure get some arc in this low gravity." Owen laughs as Tosh Ewwwws beside him where she is crouching.

The sun's gonna break any minute. Something suddenly occurs to Owen. He yanks up his pants, runs to the remains of the Hab. Looks around desperately. Pulls free a metal rib. Turns to Ianto.

"Run." He shouts throwing the metal at Ianto, "Towards the sun."

Ianto either understands or doesn't bother to ask why. Takes off. Owen yanks free another shard of metal. Pounds it into the sand a dozen feet from the Hab. The sun is just breaking the horizon. Robby is fifty yards away.

"Stop! Left. Left. A little more. Right. Mark it." Owen yells as he adjusts his own peg a tad. Ianto comes loping back.

"What'd we do?" Ianto pants as he comes to a stop.

"Built a directional." Tosh sees it and smiles at Owen. "Now at least we know where something is."

The RADIO CRACKLES. "Good morning, kids. Martian weather today's clear and cold. Warming to a high today of around sixty."

Jack hasn't slept. There's notes and charts and additional HHC's all over the place. "So...Houston has an idea."

They listen to the plan. It doesn't impress them.

"That's it? We walk a hundred kilometres in one day to find a twelve-by-twelve object that's been sitting there for 30 years." Owen snorts with incredulity, "That's the best plan they could come up with?"

"It's the only plan they could come up with." Jack sighs down the line.

"I guess that makes it best." Owen offers with a shrug.

"There's an I.R. maintenance port on the Cosmos. Your H.H.C. should talk to it. You'll have to reprogram the launch sequence. The bad news is..." Jack begins.

"There's bad news?" Owen snarks.

"...is it's programmed in a forty-year-old dead operating system no one uses anymore. It was something called...Windows." Jack finishes, ignoring the snarky Londoner.

None of them have ever heard of it. They all look at each other and shrug.

"We're getting a copy of it from the Smithsonian. We're gonna have to download it to you." Jack sighs as the silence comes back.

"Let's worry about it when we get there. Where're we going?" Tosh asks.

"I've got coordinates for you." Jack smiles. That's my girl.

"How 'bout something simpler. Like how many degrees it is off from the direction the sun rose. We marked it. I'm figurin' we're within half a degree." Owen looks about as though he could see it.

"Heck, we just gotta pack." Ianto says to Tosh with fake horror and she giggles. He picks up a satchel of tools. Everything else's burnt to a cinder.

Several minutes later, basic trig has been calculated. A triangle of scavenged wire stretches with one side along the directional, the other side points their way across the Martian landscape. They take a last sighting, and stride off into the distance getting smaller and smaller and then Ianto looks doubtful. "A hundred kilometres. Sixty-odd miles. Say two and a half marathons. In twelve hours. Do we really have a chance in hell?"

"It took us six hours to go 26 kilometres last time. We don't have the rebreathers, we don't have the tanks." Owen slumps as he agrees.

"Figure you weigh about fifty pounds in this gravity. We have a chance in hell. But not much more'n that." Ianto snarls as he flings a piece of metal into the burnt out fire pit.

.

.

.

Mission Control.

A messenger is escorted in and taken to Borokovski. He's got a copy of Windows, fifty years old, and still in the shrink wrap. Borokovski rips it open, then peers at tech requirements on the box. "I will need a computer with a CD-ROM drive. And a pentium processor."

Nobody moves. It's like asking for a steam engine.

"What's a pentium processor?" Andy asks.

"What's a CD-ROM?" Gwen gapes.

"It was all state-of-the-art in Kazakhstan. We were cut off." He growls at them, defensive.

Still nobody moves.

"We gotta wake up the Director of Dead Technology at the Smithsonian. And quick." Rhys demands and they all groan.

Assistants scramble. Rhys comes over to peer curiously at the shiny silver disk and he recalls anther comm link interruption.

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*********************FLASHBACK*******************

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.

.

They're playing poker and Doc is talking to his son over the comms between hands, the others cat calling and making obscene noises like it's an orgy. He's grown used and fond of these people.

"Call." Doc flicks a poke chip down.

"Call." John flicks his own in.

"Call." Owen huffs, his chip slapped down defiantly.

Owen fans his cards down. Full house. "Kings over queens."

"That's it. You're the best poker player in a hundred million miles." Doc agrees as Owen preens.

"Yep." Owen crows, as he rakes in all the chips. "And no one'll play for money. What a waste."

"I'm done. See you all in the morning." John yawns.

Game over. John leaves, Doc starts to follow as he regains conversation with Rhys, then turns and asks, three-quarters kidding "Do you cheat?"

"Compared to what?" Owen answers cryptically.

Doc gives up and leaves. Heading to his quarters where he will patch the comm link through once he settles on his bed. Rhys is left listening to the two men remaining.

"Do you cheat?" Ianto asks softly.

"Only John" Owen answers.

"That seems fair" Ianto agrees and they laugh softly.

"You know what I miss? A drink sometimes at the end of the day...Damned hard-asses at NASA." Owen sighs.

"You got enough gear on board to splice genes, right? Glassware, tubing, Bunsen burners...all that kind of stuff?" Ianro asks as he slides the cards into their box.

"Yep, sure do. Why?"

Ianto grins.


	12. Chapter 12

Chap 12

FLASHBACK CONT.

Jack comes in to see why they are still up. Doc had fallen asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow and Rhys was unwilling to cut the feed, liking the comradery he was hearing, so far away.

Ianto moves quickly to intercept him. Blocks his view.

"I came to apologize." Jack began, "You were uncomfortable with a situation the other day, and I made you more uncomfortable for my own amusement. I'm sorry. It's too small a ship for playground games."

"Okay." Ianto nods, agreeing so he can leave them alone.

"Okay? No witty comeback? No gloating?" Jack frowns. "No explanation for why the temperature in this sphere is up three degrees?"

Jack slithers by him before he can stop him to find Owen tending a huge contraption of glass tubing, Bunsen burners and filtration tanks.

"He's teaching me." Ianto stutters, pushing past Jack to stand by Owen, "about biology. I've developed an interest in..."

"...fermentation?" Jack hoots, "Even when you make it out of high-tech glassware, a still looks just like a still."

"You built a still?" Jack asks and Rhys covers his mouth to smother his laughter lest Jack also discover their third partner in the scheme.

"It's a science experiment. Did you know that an ounce of red wine per day actually benefits your heart?" Owen said defiantly.

"So does three ounces of grape juice." Jack eyeballs him back.

"Grapes don't grow well hydroponically...So we, ah, used potatoes..." Ianto muttered and Jack gaped.

"You're making moonshine vodka on my ship." He slowly stated.

"Well, yes, Sir. But we ran it through the Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer and the impurity levels are very low." Ianto says quickly.

"How's it taste?" Jack tilts his head and Owen is the first to realize they're off the hook.

"It's a little rough." Owen admits.

"Are you going to offer me a drink?" Jack sits at the table and Ianto lowers into the chair next to him with relief.

"Of course. That would be the polite thing to do." Owen simpers.

Jack tosses it back. "Woooof."

They laugh nervously. Rhys can now be heard and Jack looks up at the speakers and smiles.

"That's a little rough. How much have you made?" He finally asks.

"About three litres." Owen admits.

Jack nods, "You're done. Dismantle the science project. Offer equal rations to the crew. Mr. Hart doesn't drink, you wouldn't like him if he did."

They nod slowly and Rhys can be heard sighing.

"Now tell me the truth. How much were you cutting this?" Jack looked a this empty glass with surprise.

"About three to one. I can't believe you drank that." Ianto smiled.

"I learned to fly in the Navy." Jack laughs, "Wimps."

Half an hour later they have half a beaker of vodka left. They're all looped and laughing.

"I spent half of my life trying to make a better potato. And the second half trying to stop it. The things were so damn good they killed everything in their path. Corn, wheat, barley..." Owen says then his face drops, "We fucked up our own back yard, hit the Malthusian wall, and tried to breed our way out of it. Maybe we don't deserve another chance."

"Don't worry, if we need any help on the surface, I'm allowed to grow us some six-fingered lab assistants." Owen lightens the mood again, he cracks up again. He's wasted. Knows it.

"I gotta go to bed." Owen slurs, stumbling off.

I'm signing off as well, goodnight then" Rhys says and they both call out their affections as he closes the connection. His Dad is with good people.

"I'm in space. I wanna see the stars." Ianto says moving out the hatch, Jakc laughs and pulls him by the leg into the opposite direction.

"Don't go outside." Jack giggles.

A billion stars, two very drunk people, half a beaker of moonshine vodka. Jack's talking about Owen as they star gaze, "He's okay. I bet there's a hell of a girl waiting for him back home."

"Three. And a horse." Ianto answers, "He really likes the horse."

"You're serious?" Jack snorts.

"He pines for the horse. You?" Ianto slowly turns his head to look at Jack in profile.

"I don't have a horse." Jack sighs.

"That's too bad." Ianto offers the almost empty beaker and Jack takes a swig.

"Can I ask you something very personal?" Jack asks softly.

"Okay."

"Do you have someone waiting for you back home? Or a horse?" Jack asks and Ianto stops breathing for a moment.

"With the kind of jobs I've had, it's very hard to maintain any kind of relationship." Ianto admits, "So...no horses."

"Or maybe you took those jobs 'cause you didn't want anyone waiting for you. Or maybe..." 

"No, I like horses just fine." They've floated very close.

"You know, you're not who I thought you were at first." Jack mrmurs.

"Is that an insult or a compliment?" Ianto asks as he feels Jack's hands slide around hi hips, pulling them together.

"An observation." Jack whispers. They're very, very close. And very drunk. It's when he should kiss him.

The moment passes. They both know it was there and now it's gone. Drift apart. Feel stupid.

Damn.


	13. Chapter 13

Chap 13

MOVING ACROSS the landscape. Miles and miles from where they started, they move rapidly across a dry wash, across the bank and up and over a hill. And stop dead at the top.

Over the next ridge, the landscape is covered with algae. Colours like oil paint, large brush strokes on the landscape. Oxblood brown, burnt orange, cadmium yellow.

"Wattya know." Ianto huffs with wonder.

Ianto gets down on one knee to examine it. Half inch to an inch high, vividly coloured. Healthy. "Maybe it's the longitude. Maybe it's the equatorial belt..."

"Maybe it doesn't matter 'cause we gotta keep moving or we're gonna die." Owen interrupts.

Ianto doesn't argue. Just trying to stay alive is the greater mission right now. They bound down far side..

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.

.

Borokovski is labouring to install Windows on a 50-year-old computer from the museum. Yvonne and Andy watch, mesmerised. It crashes. Again.

"Yob tyvou mot!" Borokovski explodes (Which, by the way, means "fuck your mother.")

"It keeps crashing." He snarls at them "That was part of its charm. You had to buy programs to check why the program you had already bought was not working."

"People installed this on their computers on purpose? It wasn't a virus?" Andy asks with confusion.

"The company planned it this way." Borokovski explains, "It was later discovered they owned all the companies that sold you the products to fix the product they had already sold you."

"I remember this. The government had to bomb the factory in the end." Gwen mutters.

Borokovski nods. Windows comes up. "Look, there we go."

.

.

.

Jack watches the Mars landscape through the cameras, searching desperately.

As the picture skitters along the surface and finds them, tiny figures on a landscape. In extreme profile.

He marks their location on the vid-screen, zooms out wide. The Hab and the Cosmos are marked with symbols. The computer pauses, analyses, then spits them out as a little more than 56 kilometres along their way.

More calculation is done on the screen. They're more than halfway; they've used up less than half the available daylight; their average speed is looking good. They're on time, on schedule and on the right course. So far, so good.

"Ground crew, this is Torchwood." Jack flicks the coms, "You're a little more than half. You're doing great."

"Oh yeah, we're doing fabulous." Owen snarks and Jack smiles at the acidic man's voice.

As he plunges into darkness, he can hear Owen start to sing "Rollin', rollin', rollin', keep them doggies rollin'."

They're all exhausted and a little punchy as they plod along.

"How long can a man go without food or water?" Owen wonders aloud.

"How long can you go without singing that dumb song?" Tosh huffs and Owen looks hurt. Walks another few paces. Begins to sing again. Tosh turns to Ianto.

"There's two of us." She stage whispers "And we can stop him from singing."

Ianto considers. Then sings along instead. They only know the one line. It's really annoying.

"What is that?" Ianto finally asks and Owen stops to think.

"I have no idea." He starts to shuffle again, "It's old, though. It's classic music."

"I don't know the classics." Ianto admits.

This sets Owen off. He sings some more "Mars ain't a place to raise your kids, In fact it's cold as hell, And there's no one there to raise them, If you dig."

"What the hell is that?" Ianto laughs.

"You don't know any of the classics, do you? He was a rocket man." Owen crows.

"An astronaut wrote that?" Ianto cries with mirth as Tosh giggles as well.

"Never mind." Owen muters.

"Sing the one about the dogs again." Ianto prompts.

"It's about cows." Owen groans.

"Then why does it say doggies?" Ianto is really confused now and Tosh just shrugs too.

All this time, they've been walking across a landscape pigmented with colour - steel blue, crimson, bright green - the algae varietals everywhere. And then off to the left, the algae stops. Erased, like it was never there, halted in a long crooked line.

"What the fuck?" Ianto says softly.

"Yeah, what the fuck? You said doggies." Tosh demands.

Then she sees as well. They all see. Can't help themselves. They're drawn towards it. Owen and Tosh check their course in the distance before veering off. Ianto is already heading towards it.

It's maybe 100 yards away. At 50, something indistinct can be seen. Sort of. It's like the line, and the surrounding terrain is out of focus, blurry. At 30, the blurriness comes into focus. It's alive. It moves slightly. You can see through it. At ten, you can see it undulating. Erasing the algae, the colour slowly spreading outwards behind and diffusing. And then he can see a billion, a hundred billion...nematodes. Little tiny translucent worms. Eating the algae. Slowly, irrevocably. Advancing.

Ianto pulls out his entrenching tool. Carefully separates one out. Lifts it up to the light to see. Maybe three inches long, skinnier than an earthworm. One end lifts in the air, a tri-part mouth with little crystalline teeth opening and closing, searching for something to eat.

It's fucking scary. It gets worse when you realize how many of them there are. The line's moved three or four inches closer as they stand there. They take a step back. No one can really speak yet.

"What..." Ianto holds it out to Owen.

"It's a nematode. Or something like one. It's probably this skinny so it defrosts each morning when the sun hits them. Or they're not water-based at all." Owen says as he and Tosh examine it.

"Is it something we sent up by accident with the probes?" Ianto wonders.

"No." Tosh says confidently.

"I thought we said there wasn't any life on this planet." Ianto said still on his knees.

"We did. We were wrong. Maybe there wasn't when we checked. I don't know. It's not from Earth." Owen declares.

"And it's not from here." Tosh agrees.

"This can't be. This can't be." Owen actually seems kind of upset about it. Ianto looks at him. Say what? Owen is upset.

"It can't be here. You don't understand." Owen says as he looks over the undulating mass, "The odds of there being any other life in the universe are infinitesimally small. The odds that it could survive on something other than its home planet are equally astronomical. The odds that it could travel to another solar system, let alone one where life already existed are...impossible."

"But it's here." Tosh says quietly.

"Yeah." Owen seems almost unhappy about this. It rocks his world. In a bad way.

Tosh turns to Ianto happily and untroubled "Well, it looks like we're not alone in the universe. You just discovered life on another planet, pal."

It takes a moment for this to sink in. Then something hits Ianto. "Made by God. That's what's supposed to be stamped on the bottom. That's what Doc would have said. He woulda loved this."

Tosh gets down on one knee and looks at them. They're kinda horrible, but as she turns to Ianto, "You know what this means? You're gonna be more famous than Darwin. They're gonna name buildings after you. Space crafts, cities on Mars"

"Right. Right. Motherfuck. Motherfuck." Ianto says and then he says something really odd "Name them after Hart."

"You hated John."

"Yeah." He storms away. They're both confused by this. Ianto finds a rock, sits down behind it. He's obscured except for his head and shoulders. "I need a minute or two."

"You wanna tell Houston?" Tosh calls out.

"Go ahead. You do it. Just give me a few minutes." Ianto hopes they can't hear his tears in his voice.

"We seem to have come across the, uh, cause of the annihilation of the algae. There's cryptoendolithic life here. Eating it." Owen informs mission control.

"They're hallucinating." Rhys says sadly.

"Ianto's a bit overcome. Or he'd be telling you about it himself. But the discovery goes to him." Tosh joins the conversation, "Though he wants to name them after Hart."

They all look at each other, then Yvonne reaches for the mic, "You're saying there's Martian life."

"No, that there's life on Mars. We're not saying where it came from. But not Earth. Fuck." Ianto mutters, still overcome with confusion.

They all disregard that last bit.

"They're like some kind of translucent worms." Owen says and the scientists and Techs all scramble.

"You're all seeing these?" Yvonne asks.

"Oh yeah. They're here. What did you think this was, hypoxia?" Owen scoffs.

They did.

Conversation over, Owen closes the coms and shakes his head at Tosh.

Tosh walks towards the rock "We should get outta here."

Owen has wandered back to the bugs and is on his hands and knees, worshiping them.

"Owen, come on!" she calls out, Ianto turning to see why he is not responding.

"Jesus...Jesus God..." Owen starts to scream and Ianto runs over. Owen has been surrounded by the creatures and they surge up his suit.

Tosh has joined him. There's nothing they could do. Ianto holds Tosh back as she screams, watching in shock. As if some secret message the food is here has spread through the billions of them in burst of knowledge.

A diaphanous, hungry wave crests onto Owen and engulfs him. He's covered in translucence as they devour him. They stagger backwards in horror as a red aureole grows around him as he's eaten. Colour spreads out around him in a perfect ever-growing circle. It's a feast.


	14. Chapter 14

Chap 14

The two of them walk along. Can't tell if they're hurrying towards something or away. They've both figured out what's up. A beat, then Tosh breaks the silence, "Nobody deserves to die like that."

"No." Ianto says softly.

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.

.

At mission control there's a general buzz of animated scientific debate. One voice cuts through/

"We've thawed out three and four-million-year-old organisms from the permafrost in Siberia and they've come back to life. It's possible." A scientist agrees.

"So even if there wasn't life there, there is now." Another asks.

"And we warmed the place up and sent it something to eat." Another said with glee.

"It could have sat there for millions of years since Mars cooled. Waiting. Rode in on a frozen meteorite from anywhere. And waited." A voice chimes in from the corner.

"Like sea monkeys. But not as friendly." Borokovski snorts.

They all consider that. Kinda bizarre but accurate.

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.

.

Tosh and Owen trudge onward. Ianto checks his watch. It's time. Tosh hands him the radio. Walks ahead. Doesn't want to hear.

Jack just heard the news. It's like he's been punched. It takes him a moment to recover. "Copy that, Ground Crew."

Mission Control has heard as well.

The sun is way past its zenith. It hangs noticeably lower in the sky. Maybe four or five o'clock. They plod along. They're beat. There's no singing, there's no banter. They're just trying to keep moving.

Jack finds them again with 10m scope. Marks it. Computer analyses their position. The results aren't encouraging. Their average speed has been steadily dropping. There's only two hours left till dark. They've gone 79 kilometres. And they're projected to get 88.5 kilometres before nightfall. They're gonna miss getting to the Cosmos by about an hour.

It's worse. They're stumbling. Not keeping in all that straight a line. Having to constantly re-check their position.

"Ground Crew, this is Torchwood" Jack calls out to them, "How's it goin'?"

They look at each other. Is he kidding?

"We've just done a little over two marathons back to back. We haven't had anything to eat or drink in two days. There are these worms that want to eat us and a mad robot who wants to kill us. Why do you ask?" Ianto answers, he starts to laugh. For some weird reason Tosh joins him.

"You're not going to like what I have to say." Jack says as he wonders about the robot remark.

"You're going home?" Tosh pants, "Bring us some chicken."

They crack up anew.

"You have to pick up the pace." Jack warns.

They laugh. It's not funny, but they really laugh.

"We're not gonna make it?" Tosh giggles.

"At this pace, you'll make about ninety kilometres." Jack says sadly.

Tosh shakes herself. Digs into some deep reserve. Picks up her speed and shouts "We Sleep Till Brooklyn!"

She totters off towards the horizon.

"What was that?" Jack asks.

"Harper's been singing classic music. I don't know most of it." Ianto laughs as Owen would have loved Tosh's craziness.

"No Sleep Till Brooklyn!" Tosh yells agin.

"Neither does she. I think she knows one line from each song. We'll try to go faster. We really will..." he's trying to convince himself as well as Jack. But he does pick up the pace and push after Tosh.

.

.

.

Borokovski has listened in curiously to this exchange. "Why is she speaking of Brooklyn?"

"She's singing classic music to keep her spirits up." Andy replies and Borokovski looks him curiously.

"I studied it in college. It's the Beastie Guys. Most of the music we listen to today is based on the ground-breaking work they did before the turn of the century." Andy explains

.

.

.

40 Minutes later. They're stumbling. Literally. Ianto just stops.

"You know, I don't care if I weigh 60 pounds on Mars. I am one tired doggie." Ianto sits down on a rock. Tosh collapses nearby. They can't go any further. Tosh catches her breath.

"Ten K short." Tosh complains as she checks her readings.

The sun is a finger above the horizon. Redder than red, breathtakingly beautiful.

"It's pretty." She motions at the sunset.

"Too bad we're gonna be dead. I can't keep walking in circles. And there's nothing to keep us warm." Ianto grouses.

They look around unhappily. Ugly way to die.

"It's gonna be like trying to live on Mount Everest." Ianto looks for somewhere to settle.

"What would we do if we were on Mount Everest?" Tosh asks.

Ianto thinks a long time. "I would have brought a tent."

"If we didn't have a tent." Tosh askes, Ianto is so tired he's confused.

"We don't have a tent." Ianto repeats.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know."

"I'd guess you'd dig a snow cave. Use the snow for insulation. You've seen the 3Ds." Ianto frowns at her.

There's a funky-looking hillock nearby. Five feet high, as big around. Tosh totters to her feet. Goes over and kicks it. It's soft volcanic rock.

"Let's dig a snow cave." She demands.

"There's no snow." Ianto laughs.

Tosh kicks at it again. Gives. She takes out the entrenching tool, hacks at it. Knocks a piece free.

"Let's dig a snow cave or we're gonna fucking die." Tosh demands, she starts to wail on it. Ianto staggers over and joins her. The two of them start to flail away like a cross between prehistoric man and giant beavers, desperate.

The sun begins to set. 30 miles away, the terminus, the line where night turns to day, begins to advance across the planet towards them. In the dark of the shadow, the frost forms a dozen feet behind and follows growing, growling, the cold advancing towards them with a crackle and whine. It's as if the cold has a voice.

They can see the darkness approaching. Digging madly. Cackling. Losing their minds. Can't tell who is who as they're silhouetted against the sun, one now inside the hillock throwing rock back as the other clears.

The sun continues to drop. Terminus continues its pernicious HISSING and freezing approach.

Halfway inside now. On his knees, suit light on, Ianto chops away at the rock. When he's thigh-deep in debris, he backs out, dragging the leavings with him. Tosh leaps in, replacing him. Dripping in sweat, nutty, but at least they're doing something.

The last of the sun disappears. Their breath is in the air. The darkness and frost reaches them now. The sweat begins to freeze, ice in their hair and eyebrows and stubble. But they've dug most of the shelter. They continue to thrash and chop away. The frost is now everywhere.

Tosh climbs inside. Ianto drags a lava boulder over to seal the entrance. Climbs in, hooks his tool into the rock and seals it shut.


	15. Chapter 15

Chap 15

It's not big. The two of them are scrunched into balls. They chop away and pack the debris in the entry tunnel to block the cold. Shaking bitterly. Lips blue

Nothing. Darkness. Rocks. And in the midst of it all, our crazy hillock/snow cave.

Ianto looks up to find Tosh staring at him. Actually, not exactly at him. At his forehead.

"What? Is this some kind of cartoon moment where you're imagining I'm a giant chicken and you're going to eat me?" Ianto asks with a grin.

"It's melting" Tosh says softly.

"It's a Wizard of Oz moment?" Ianto giggles.

"The ice on your forehead is melting. The rock's really insulating us. We might not freeze to death." Tosh grins back.

"Oh. Good." And then the enormity of what's gone on hits them. And the exhaustion. Adrenaline is gone. Ianto physically droops. Tosh follows.

"I've never been this tired. I've never hurt this bad. You think dead is worse than this?" Ianto asks as they cuddle for warmth.

"Hell, we'll probably know soon. Shut up. Rest." Tosh mutters as she snuggles into his chest.

"We oughta probably tell someone we're not frozen solid. Yet." Ianto says and Tosh checks her watch.

"We're on the nightside, can't reach Houston. Jack's dayside for another forty-five." She tells him and he hums.

.

.

.

The Mission Control Common vid-screen shows ground crew's projected position. Darkside of the planet. Estimated temperature of -20 degrees Fahrenheit and falling. The room's downcast. And bewildered.

"Not a word before it got dark." Gwen says sadly, "25 degrees. -30 degrees."

"They're dead. Or dying." Rhys swallows, "Let's get Jack home."

"He's gonna wanna waste a pass trying to get them on the radio." Gwen says an Rhys nods.

"Let him. He's got five and a half hours before the orbit starts to decay. If he has to do this so he can concentrate later on, so be it." Rhys agrees.

Gwen gets busy on the radio with Jack, "Torchwood, this is Houston..."

.

.

.

Their breath condenses on the ceiling. Freezes. Then falls down. It's snowing. They've got their own weather system. Ianto watches it fall. Tosh seems kinda pissed.

"No, I don't know why the worms are here. No, I don't know why we're still alive." She snarls at Ianto who focuses away from the snow flakes and onto her.

"There's gotta be a reason." Ianto prompts her.

A moment, then "You're talking about faith, sweetie. Faith is another way of saying I know something you don't know but I can't tell you 'cause it's a secret. But I don't know why I know it. I live in the real world. I've lived there my whole life. I'm comfortable there."

"We're not in the real world. We're on Mars." Ianto growls back, "Nobody gets in a rocket ship to outer space without some kind of faith. Do they?"

Tosh doesn't answer. Not directly. But she looks like a third grader busted in some elaborate story she can't keep up.

"If you think I'm gonna have some kind of weak-ass epiphany for you right here in this cave, you're wrong. Now, why don't you get that light outta my eyes and let me try to rest." She finally huffs.

Ianto's satisfied. Lowers the light to a dull glow, leans back against the rock.

.

.

.

The Torchwood slips into darkness.

Jack reaches for the mike, begins "Ground crew, this is Torchwood. Do you read?"

Jack waited but got no response.

"Ground crew, this is Torchwood. Do you read?"

.

.

.

The radio lies on the ground. The green light flickers with his transmissions. But little signal seeps through the rock. What there is sounds muffled.

And they are fast, fast asleep.

.

.

Time has passed. Jack has searched with the 10m scope. IR, thermal. he picks up the occasional footprint. Tracks their progress. Finds some odd rock configurations. And...Nothing. They're just gone. Finally, he gives up. Picks up mic sadly for one last time "Ground crew, this is Torchwood. It was a pleasure and an honour to serve with you, my friends."

Sits quietly a moment, then turns off the screen. Brings up a new image. Shows his current fuel status, position and projected path. He begins to work on getting home.

.

.

.

Dead quiet. The two small moons shine faintly. A rime of ice covers everything. The hill glistens in the feeble light. The rock entrance is sealed over with frost.

Ianto and Tosh breathe shallowly. The inside of the cave is covered in white flaking hoarfrost. Lips are blue. Skin is pale. Ianto's eyes open. Something's wrong. Doesn't know what. And then he realizes the air moving in and out of his lungs isn't doing him any good at all. The door is caked shut with ice. There's no air.

He moves badly, uncoordinated, but manages to chop and shove it open. Fresh ice cold air rushes in. Tosh awakes. Only half-responsive. Ianto grabs her, drags her out.

"Breathe! Breathe!" he cries as he shakes her.

Cognizance returns. Tosh looks at her watch.

It doesn't make any sense. Three hours have passed. Three hours...

"Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch. We've been asleep for three hours!" Tosh howls with disbelief.

Ianto desperately hauls out the radio. "Torchwood, this is ground crew. Torchwood, this is ground crew."

"Forget it. He's dayside again. If he's even still here." Tosh flops onto the ground and growls with frustration.

"We gotta get to Cosmos." Ianto says and looks around. Oh God...It gets worse. "Can't see the landmarks."

Ianto starts to madly scan the night sky. "We gotta keep moving."

He yanks out his HCC. Mutters rapidly into it. We see the map appear. Hab/Cosmos line marked. Then a star chart for Mars on this day and time. He calls for it to change to a horizon projection.

The machine freezes, computes. Brings up a horizon. It matches what Ianto sees. And highlights a star sitting just above the horizon that will lead them on their way. Canis Minor. They start to run.

A beat. Myfanwy rises up silently from behind a rock and watches them go.

The two friends run. Lit by the two moons Phobos and Deimos - Fear and Terror. It's unbelievably cold. Plumes of breath light up around them as they go. Following the star on the horizon. Across a valley, over a ridge. Over a dune. Scrambling.

Up and over the next long, long gradient. They lose the star over this false horizon as they climb. There's something odd, however. A faint broad wash of light coming over the lip. They crest the rise to reveal a valley. Completely covered in phosphorescent algae. Pale green and glowing. A mile across, a mile wide. If they weren't rushing for their lives, it would be worth stopping to stare.

Across the vale Canis Minor sits directly in the centre of a small mountain pass. They're about to dash onward when something - intuition, it's hard to say what - hits Ianto. "Stop."

"What?" Tosh asks.

Ianto's not quite sure at first. But won't enter the algae. Walks left, walks right. Kneels down.

The algae glows. Otherworldly. And then movement. A worm, green, glowing and filled with algae, slithers through. And then another. And another, indistinguishable from the plants around them they've imbibed.

And then as Ianto plays his light out across the valley we realize it's entirely full of worms. Ianto takes an appalled step back. They're fucked.

"We're fucked."


	16. Chapter 16

Chap 16

Yosh considers for a moment. And yeah, probably has that epiphany. Then "Get to the closest point you can safely. I'm gonna go down to that end."

She starts to run to the far end.

"What are you gonna do?" Ianto yells.

Tosh is far enough away now that her voice comes over the suit coms.

"I'm gonna distract them." She yells.

"You're gonna distract the worms?" Ianto gapes.

"Yeah."

Perhaps Ianto ought to give this more thought. But he doesn't. Maybe it's the exhaustion. Maybe it just never would have occurred to him. Tosh disappears into the darkness and the distance. Ianto waits. Then "You ready?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Lemme know when it starts to clear."

Ianto doesn't get it. But a moment later, a shiver runs through the worms. And they start to undulate away. Towards Tosh. Pulsing faster and faster until it's clear in a moment or two, like a giant amoebae withdrawing, he will have clear access to the pass.

At the far end, is five hundred yards into the worms. They know. They've told each other. And they're coming in pulsating waves. Towards her. At the epicentre. She gags. And hears "It's clear Toshi."

Tosh tries to turn around. She's mired now. And they're up to her waist. It's a fucking nematode feeding frenzy. "Good."

She can't even lift her feet. They're beginning to cover her now. She can see the colour of her suit spreading around her as they devour it.

"You were right, sweetie." She is strangely calm now, at the end, "There's gotta be a reason. This can't just be an accident. I don't know what the worms're doing here or how they got here. But science don't explain it. And it pisses me off to no end."

Ianto turns. He can see now what Tosh has done. A tiny glowing figure can be seen 1000 yards away. He's speechless.

"I'm gonna have to turn off my radio in a sec. So you don't have to hear me screaming like a girl." Tosh says softly.

"What have you done?" Ianto bites back a sob.

"Finding out there's things I don't understand. That science don't know squat about. Maybe even the damn Earth's worth saving. Someone's gotta give it a try. Gotta find out about these worms. Go, get off this fucking planet." Tosh calls out, "cause you don't want to see this."

"There's two women in Missoula, one in Bozeman. Tell them each they were my last words." She sobs.

"Oh, my Lord..." the radio goes. Across the distance we can see a figure, now entirely coated in luminous worms, writhing wildly. Ianto leaves his light on, starts to run.

The phosphorescence is gone in the centre of the circle. The edges are the colour of her suit. Then blood red for forty yards. Bits of bone white. And then right in the dead centre, grey, spreading, spreading as what was once Tosh's brain is food for worms.

Ianto scrambles up, steeper and steeper, to the edge of the valley and the ridge line. From the top he can see the way below is his prize - the Cosmos. Checks his watch, hopefully, desperately triggers the radio.

"Torchwood, this is ground crew. Torchwood, this ground crew. Do you copy?" Ianto sobbed into the coms.

Above him somewhere in the sky. Jack is locking out parts of the ship to conserve power on the way home. At first he's not sure he really heard that. Rushes across the room to the radio interface."Ground crew?! Status?" he barks.

"Me. Alone. The worms just ate Tosh." Ianto sobs, "Thought you might be gone."

"Guess you promised you wouldn't leave..." Ianto laughs shakily.

"Ianto, I'm...still here." They both know he's caught him still here by happenstance.

"I'm about a kilometre from the Cosmos. It's in sight. Call you when I'm there." Ianto picks up the pace as he sees the end game is near.

Ianto heads down. Bounding down the hill. No algae on his side. He leaves a trail of phosphorescent footprints as he goes. They grow fainter and fainter as he descends.

Up on the Torchwood Jack comes rushing in. Too fast. Slams up into a wall. Resets. Belts himself in.

Down on the surface, It's been sitting there for 30 years. As he approaches, the solar panels turn and track towards his light. It's still waiting. Sits on six over-built legs. Sample return vehicle launches off the base. Liquid fuel tanks, sample return container the size of a large trash can.

"How you doing?" Jack's voice comes over the coms.

"It's really cold. My fingers aren't sure they want to work." Ianto hudffs as he struggles to check the old vehicle.

"You can do this." Jack reassures him. "The maintenance port has a cover. It should be marked."

Ianto looks it over. Minor stumbling block, "Yeah. In Cyrillic."

Finds it anyhow. He flexes his unresponsive fingers, and after a try or two, unscrews the cover, reveals an IR port. "Got it."

"All right, I'm gonna download this to you." Jack days and Ianto can heat the clacking of keys.

Ianto yanks out his HHC. Dozen adapters in the back. Finds the one that fits the old modem port on the jerry-rigged radio. "Go."

"Plugs it in. Stuff flashes. On the HHC, Windows comes up, the Cosmos Launch Master program, Cyrillic crudely re-labelled in English. Unplugs the modem so he can speak again.

"It's still got power." Ianto crows.

"You should be able to run diagnostics." Jack comes back.

There's a diagnostics check and launch check. He hits diagnostics. The two talk, link up, and - a Windows error screen comes up on the HHC:

 _"Warning - your system has become busy or unstable. Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to exit programs and reboot."_

"I know now why it didn't launch" Ianto says as he watches the screen ask for a re-boot, "Control alt delete."

Reboots in the blink of an eye. Systems check positive.

"It's looking good." Ianto pants as he re-checks.

"Okay, this thing only has two settings. On and off. One sends it all the way back to Earth. As you don't have air, food or water, which would be bad." Jack informs him, calculating madly as he goes on. Trying to sound calm. He's anything but. "We want just enough lift for escape velocity. With the weight you left at and the suit...I peg you at 165. It was designed to take 200 pounds of rocks home. Tanks are seven litres each. You need to take two litres out of each tank. There's a central purge; you're gonna have to be exact."

"And you better try to find something to put the fuel in and get it the hell away from there, as we don't want it to go up when the rocket goes off." Jack warns.

Ianto considers. Yeah, it all makes sense. But how?

Ianto, using the few tools he has left, has unbolted the sample return container. Measures its width "I need you to do some math. A cylinder 50 centimetres wide, how deep is six litres?"

"Eleven and three quarter centimetres." Jack answers and Ianto measures and scribes in the line.

"Somewhere, Mr. Plummer, my 10th-grade math teacher, is cackling like a son-of-a-bitch." Ianto mutters and Jack huffs don the line.

Ianto slides underneath, opens the main purge and fills the big steel bucket with rocket fuel. It looks just like the guy at Texaco, working on your car. "Now what?"

"Launch diagnostics. Avoid pressing anything that says ignition." Jack answers and Ianto fancies he can hear the grin.

He runs it - seals are good, pumps are good, engine's ready. And the ignition power force, all 300 volts of it, is dead as a doornail. The program suggests the replacement part number. And suggests he order it quickly. Checks again. Answer's the same. He slumps down, sits beside SRM. He ain't going nowhere. Just sits there. Can't move. Can't speak. After all this, he's fucked. Stares out into the distance.


	17. Chapter 17

Chap 17

"Ianto?"

"No. No go. There's enough power to run the computer, but not enough to launch."

"How much do you need?" Jack asks.

"I need 300 volts at six amps. And I've 28 volts running the computer system. Ignition battery's stone cold."

"Is there anything you can use?" Jack's voice sounds as strained as Ianto feels.

"Let me look around and see if I see a high voltage source...No, just rocks. In fact, everywhere I look, there's just fucking rocks. And more fucking rocks." Ianto snarks, as he tries not to break down "I'm gonna die here."

Jack's shook. He knows he's right. Not a damn thing he can say. Tries to maintain. Barely. Looks up at one of the screens. In four minutes he's back on day side orbit. And then home.

.

.

.

Ianto steadies himself. Picks the radio back up. He's just babbling to keep himself sane for a little while.

"I didn't come here to be a citizen. I came as a tourist. You know, visit Mars, and check out the sights. Go home."

.

.

.

Jack tries to do the right thing. Whatever the hell that is...Takes a breath, wipes away an errant tear, and tries to be calm for him. "Is there anything you want me to do?"

"Tell all of Tosh's women that they were the only one."

"For you?"

"No." Ianto sighs, "I shoulda kissed you."

There's a long beat. Yeech. He shouldn't have said anything. Then "Yeah. You shoulda kissed me."

Ianto can't believe it. He could kick himself. "Okay. This is like all the worst parts of high school math and the beautiful guy you're too stupid to tell you're madly in love with. And then, I get to die. What a shitty day."

Commander Harkness, I am really sorry I didn't kiss you. Really, really sorry.

He pauses. Only half a beat, but Torchwood bursts from the darkness into the light of day side and is gone.

When he goes on "Loved you madly, shoulda said so."

It's too late. Jack never hears. Static. He realizes he's gone. Puts the radio down. He is very, very alone.

On board the Torchwood, he sits there, just gut-shot for a moment. Picks up the mike. "Houston, this is Torchwood, commencing return sequence."

.

.

.

On all the PIM's his return trajectory is plotted. He's to come all the way across the day side, enter night, begin acceleration and slingshot around the backside of Mars and head home.

"Copy." Gwen answers, "Torchwood, beginning return"

Jack steels himself then reports the rest of the news "Ground crew, reduced to Jones, reached Cosmos, failed second diagnostics. No joy, no launch. While crew member is still extant, mission commander declaring him E.O.M. Commencing return."

There's silence in Mission Control. Not everyone has followed the circumvention.

"What was all that?" Andy asks the room.

"Ianto made it to the Cosmos, won't launch, he's alive, he's gotta leave him." Rhys days hollowly.

"Whoa." Andy hasps.

"Da." Borokovski agrees.

.

.

.

Ianto sits there. And sits there. Alone beyond imagining. Hope gone. Just staring 1000 yards out into the distance. Not looking at anything. Waiting to die. He's given up.

And then...he shakes himself out of it. Just feels foolish he's let himself go this far. Gets up. Done with feeling sorry for himself.

"Well, this can't get any worse. I guess." Grabs himself to stay warm. Hops up and down. On one of the hops he ends up facing the direction he came from. There's something green and phosphorescent coming over the ridge. They've tracked him. Footprint by footprint.

He looks closer. It's not just the ridge. They're down in the valley with him. The ones in the front are back to translucent, not glowing anymore. They're hungry for something new. He gets down low to silhouette them against the sky. There are already four or five hundred thousand on this side of the hill. And they're coming. Faster.

"I guess I was wrong. It can get worse. A lot fucking worse." Ianto mutters then shouts as them, "Forgive me if I don't feel like getting eaten before I die!"

They don't really respond. Except the ones in the front who rear up, and seem to listen or sniff for him. And gnash their little crystalline teeth. They split now to come at him from two sides.

"Oh, man"

Sees the bucket of rocket fuel. Lot closer to them than it is to him. Gathers his nerve, runs, grabs the bucket. Drags it twenty feet back. Then tilts it, carefully pouring it out in a ring around himself and the Cosmos. Worms closing in as he goes. Leads a fuse of fuel back towards him. Lights it.

It burns low and yellow in the oxygen-depleted atmosphere. Doesn't look like much. Certainly not a defence. First worm gets near it. Unsure. Bewildered. Pulls back. But his compatriots are behind him, still coming. No choice. He advances. And...POOF. A burst of red-orange as he touches the flame.

And the next...And the next. Like little sparks. Ianto watches, puzzled by this...And then it hits. Right as the ring of flame is about to die out. The main wave touches the ring of fire. And...They do burn. And scream. Little squeals that multiplied by tens and hundreds of thousands begin to pierce the air.

"That's for eating the Hab! And killing Tosh, you slimy worm fuckers!" Ianto screams at them with glee.

Rolling waves of flame. Half plasma. Flying blobs of burning worms rain down like napalm. One lands on and torches the cobbled-together radio. It's so damn hot for a moment Ianto panics, thinking everything might explode. Then it drops to embers and the wave burns over the hill like a wild fire.

Ianto does a dance of triumph. However short-lived. Then it hits him "How do you burn like that without oxygen?"

There's a BLAST of flame from the far side of the ridge that rattles rocks and Cosmos. Knocks him to the ground.

"Holy shit...Holy shit!" Ianto scrambles back to his feet as he stares with wonder over the hill. He figured it out. There's a couple of dozen worms, unburnt and thrown free. He picks one up, looks at it.

"You motherfuckers stole all the oxygen!" he laughs, "And you can give it back. Motherfuckers. I gotta tell someone. It could work. It could work here"

He turns, looks - the radio is still burning. He snatches it up, scorches him. Tries to put it out. It's cooked. Deceased. He's devastated. Drops to his knees.

"No! Not after all this. No!"

It ain't gonna work ever again. All the shouting isn't gonna make a difference. He knows the answer, he knows how to save the species and there's no one he can tell.

As he stumbles back onto his feet, he's jarred the switch that links to Myfanwy's display. it comes on, shows:

Myfanwy's POV

 _The fire on the far side of the ridge. She's approaching it. And fast._

He stares at it for a moment "My day is not getting better, is it."

There's a look on his face somewhere between inspiration and fear. Like he's got an idea. But it might be a really, really bad one...


	18. Chapter 18

Chap 18

Myfanwy skitters along. Moving fast. Climbs up and ever so carefully peers over the ridgeline.

The Cosmos is down below. And beneath it, his feet sticking out as works on something, Ianto. He messed with her once; she recognizes him. If she could bare her teeth like an angry dog, she would. Myfanwy considers for a moment. Makes her move.

She comes down the hill. Twelve, sixteen, twenty-foot strides. Doing forty or fifty miles an hour easy. And all but silently. Ianto hasn't yet responded. And then she's all the way to him. She rears up to strike and -Ianto, in his skivvies, bursts up from where he's buried himself in the sand, avenging, entrenching tool high over his head, already swinging as she wheels back around and...He chops off both her eyes. Sidesteps as she rushes him blindly and backhands her in her electronic Marine skull from behind.

Whatever he's hit, the jolt stiffens his arm, throws him off. The tool stays embedded. She runs headlong into the Cosmos. Smashes, stumbles, falls. And before she can get back up to her feet...He wraps the sleeve of his shirt around his hand, rescues the entrenching tool and deals a death stroke to the silver arachnid.

"Robust real-time response to the environment, my butt." Ianto pants as he grabs his satchel of tools and begins to unbolt her as fast as he can. Checks his watch. Whatever he's racing, there's only minutes to go.

Deep within the electronic entrails of Myfanwy, he dredges up her Source. Size of a soda can. A power cell that runs her for year and a half.

"Work." He whispers his plea to the heavens as much as to the battery, ripping open a panel on the Cosmos, yanks out the dead cell and hooks the new one in. It doesn't fit. He's got nothing left but a couple of wrenches and a tube of epoxy. Glues it in place.

Runs the launch Diagnostics on his HCC. It flickers, goes to yellow, flashes on and off to green. He yanks back on his suit. Grabs a handful of the uncharred worms and seals them in the container that held the Source.

Stuffs it in a side pocket. Looks at the top of SRV. Wedges himself under some cables and wiring on the top.

"This oughta be interesting." Ianto swallows and then closes his eyes.

Checks his watch. It's now or never.

.

.

.

The ship is just about to enter the darkside.

Jack's got his suit on. Screens show the peak launch and a slingshot around the backside.

"Houston, this is Torchwood. I am go for return ignition." Jack informs Mission Control.

"Copy that, Torchwood, you are go for return." Rhys' voice booms.

Torchwood slides into the darkness.

.

.

.

Ianto watches the time come around, takes a deep breath, and...

"Fuck you, Mars."

...slaps the helmet shut. Hits ignition. Nothing happens. Then the crunching of thirty-year-old mechanics. And then a flaming great roar.

And it launches.

Ianto, stuck to the top, is pinned flat. Face squashes, eyes bulge. Ship starts to show resistance burn. Thirty-year-old paint chips off like tiny shooting stars burning away as this reverse comet leaves the atmosphere.

Ianto is roaring at the top of his lungs as the Rocket climbs.

The engines splutter and fail. Fuel's expended.

Soundless. He comes skittering back from the edge of blacking out. He floats silently, orbiting the planet, slowing receding into the distance. Until he's...gone.

Jack is calmly making the last of his preparations. Downhearted and slow. He's strapped in now. Counter on a screen is ticking down. 13, 12, 11...he tries to allay his horror at what he's doing. Reaches for the mike.

"Ianto" He says softly as he closes his eyes, "If you can still hear me...I'm so sorry. And I shoulda just kissed you."

Radio, three-quarters cooked, lays there on the still-smoking ground.

Countdown continues. Nine, eight, seven...Then just breaking the horizon way out in front of him, a shiny metallic speck breaches into the light. It's a man, glued to a 30 year old rocket. Four, three...he slams down an abort button, as with the other hand he twists the radio over to the suit-to-suit frequency.

"Ianto?"

No response.

Ianto is sucking on a few useless raspy breaths. He can see him, ten kilometres away. Barely hanging on.

"No. Air." Ianto gasps.

Mission Control stares up at the screen awaiting Torchwood's return ignition.

"She should be clearing. Starting the burn." Rhys mutters as they search for signs of the vessel.

She's not showing. Still not showing.

"There's secondary object in orbit." Gwen gasps and they all rush to see her screen.

Jack flipped a set of joysticks out from underneath the dash in front of him. He's shouting at the computer.

"Reroute. Orbital manoeuvring. Power the OMS, power the R.C.S. I need roll, pitch, yaw, X, Y, Z. Now. Goddammit now!" Jack roars as he slams his fist into the control panel.

They've figured out what's up down at Mission Control. Some are thrilled, others are freaked.

"No! No, there's no fuel for manoeuvring. Stop him!" Yvonne cries but Rhys shakes his head. Not a chance. Nor would he listen to him.

"He is going to burn fuel to rescue this man without enough to come home?" Borokovski asks with wonder, "I like this guy."

Which is exactly what Jack does.

"I want ten millilitre bursts. Now!" Jack demands and he watches the lights flicker.

And puff, puff, puff...

Torchwood, bit by bit, dives down into a smaller orbit to catch up with the Cosmos.

Jack grabs the whole orbital manoeuvring assembly, yanks it out of the flight deck, turns and rushes from the sphere.

As Ianto watches it come closer, he's depleted what little air there was in the suit. And starts to die.

It's now an empty docking port. Jack careens in. No artificial gravity here. Floats as he shouts at the computer. "I want a 180 degree. Now!"

Puff, puff...The ship turns end over end. As Jack plugs the manoeuvring deck in with one hand, slaps an oxygen bottle on and his helmet shut. "Seal this level! Open the dock."

Clips himself in just in time as the airlock behind him bangs shut and the giant doors in front of him open. Air purges. And in front of him, 300 yards away, is the Cosmos.


	19. Chapter 19

Chap 19

"Ianto! Ianto!"

He doesn't respond.

Because he's unconscious or dead. His head lolls there.

There's no time left for restraint. Jack snatches a device off the wall. It looks like a rifle with a power cable. Points it at him. Triggers it. It's a huge laser pointer. Lights him up. Shouts to the computer.

"Hard Dock!" Jack screams. The ship pauses, like its thinking. And refuses.

 _Object out of range. Emergency braking will commence in seven seconds._

Torchwood tells him then turns off the pointer. Jack throws it crossly aside. There's a track on the side of the wall with a line thrower attached. He clips in. Grabs something the size of a watermelon with nozzles sticking out of it in his free hand. And shouts "Last acquisition. Line release. Full velocity."

And it does. The line wrenches him brutally along the track and hurls him into space.

Tumbling, he half-regains his bearing, holds out the mini-thrust ball. Shouts something at it. It Blasts. Drags him by the arm towards Cosmos. He smashes into it. Twisting, floundering, way too hard. Half knocks himself out. Recovers, clips in with the tether on his suit.

Ianto is completely unconscious.

He shouts something in the silence we can't hear. The reel in the ship starts to spin. So damn fast it's smouldering.

The Cosmos is reeled in, spinning wildly at the end of the line. The Torchwood, giant by comparison, is about to swallow up the tiny SRM and its two passengers. At 45 mph.

The dock comes speeding at them. They're both going to be squashed like bugs.

Jack cuts the line. And fires everything left in the portable thrust engine at once. Blue plasma flares. His arm is twisted wildly, almost pulled from its socket. But...

The Cosmos spins 180 degrees as they plunge through the opening of the port into the Torchwood. They're on the shaded side as the Cosmos hits the far side of the dock like a freight train.

"Seal! Emergency atmosphere. Now!" Jack yells and the airlock closes. The room is pommelled in white mist. He grabs an emergency cutting tool, hooks it into the front of Ianto's suit. Rips it open from stem to stern.

He's limp, unresponsive.

"No. Not after all that, dammit." Jack sobs, "No."

He checks, he has no pulse.

"Dammit, no!"

A first aid station is bolted into the wall. Jack grabs him by the front of his shirt, pushes them over there. Takes out a pair of pre-gummed shock pads, slaps them onto his chest and fires them.

Ianto is thrown completely across the room by the current. Slams into the far wall. Opens his eyes. Starts to breathe. "Hey, I knew you wouldn't leave without me."

Jack stares as if he can't believe it.

"You promised." Ianto coughs.

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They're all astonished back at Mission Control. And freaked. They've got a serious problem now.

"Mission Control. This is Torchwood. Recovered ground crew." Jack's voice crows, "Request recalc and reconfiguration for return flight. Orbit is stable but diminished."

The scientists have been figuring madly. And they don't like what they're coming up with.

"We can get 'em back. Slowly. Fifty extra days." Andy says slowly, "And we're not going to be able to support food and air for two people."

The two men aboard the Torchwood listen as Rhys motions to Gwen to speak, "that travel has been increased by approximate two months. Concern is that available life support is untenable for duration and current crew strength."

Ianto is unconvinced. _Worms tried to eat him, robots tried to kill him and they're worried about this?_ .

"Scientists. Scientists sent us here. Scientists figured the whole thing out with Mars." Ianto says to Jack with anger, "I hate to bring this up, but they got us into this whole mess in the first place. Hell, they shouldn't be allowed to drive 'cause they miss the turnoff as they consider the ramifications of the internal combustion engine."

He picks up the mike. "Hey, guys. How 'bout we come about halfway home and you send a ship with air and food and stuff to meet us? In the middle. And we don't have to get all the way back. Huh?"

"I know where there is a rocket in Uzbekistan. For cheap. A friend of mine has kept it." Borokovski laughs. Ianto likes this guy!

Outside, Mars drifts by in the view port. Jack looks at it desolately.

"So much for saving humankind and living on Mars. I guess the worms took care of that." Jack sighs as Ianto drifts into his arms.

"The worms are not our enemy. They're our friends." He whispers, enjoying the touch of another human being, let alone a desirable one.

He's pulled the container out of his pocket. Unscrews it to show him the little slimy monsters. He recoils in horror. "You brought them back? Are you insane?"

"It's okay, I'm pretty sure they don't like titanium." Ianto laughs. "We're gonna live. On Mars. Hell, maybe even back on Earth. Maybe anywhere we want. And the reason we're gonna live, is the damn worms. Yeah, they ate all the algae, and damn near everything else, but they store and excrete oxygen."

Jack finds this hard to believe. But he explains.

"That's why we could breathe." Ianto explains, "You should have seen these suckers burn when they went up. I had some time to think about this. I was in orbit for six minutes before you found me. I should have been dead. But the air locked in the suit was almost pure O2. Because of the worms. We didn't just find a new place to live on, we may have saved our old one. Toxic waste, they'll eat it. Poisonous landfills, they'll eat it."

Jack's still trying to process all this. It's been a long couple of days.

"God's got a sense of humour. He's giving us another chance. If we can all get along this time. Tosh knew somewhere that it wasn't the science, it was about having something to believe in. Doc always knew. Wonders of the deep." Ianto shakes his head sadly, "We just had to go to Mars to remind ourselves of what we should have been able to see back on Earth. It's not all about us. We can't kill everything and survive."

Jack looks back at Mars. Astounded. Believes. "You wanna tell them back on Earth the species is saved and we're gonna live?"

"How should I know, I'm the janitor."

"Well?" Jack says with a gleam in his eye, "What can you do for my poor, tired heart?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Ianto kisses Jack. Soft, gentle and so bloody sweet. They drift in the weightless dock as hands explore and Ianto shivers as Jack's hands find their way inside his t-shirt.

"It's an extra fifty days back." Jack pants as he pulls the t-shirt of Ianto's head, then moans at the sight before him.

"Gee, wonder what we'll find to do with ourselves." Ianto asks with mock sincerity.

Jack growls and kisses Ianto passionately, removing all doubt that they will be busy, indeed.

The End

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Thanks for reading, I tried to keep it as close to the story as I could, an extra smut chap will follow for those of you who want it, if you don't … this was it.

Laters Alligators.


	20. Chapter 20

Ianto is asleep.

He free floats in the sleeping quarters and Jack takes a moment to watch, then gently hooks him by his leg and pulls him though the zero grav vessel.

Jack gently manoeuvres Ianto into the observation deck where the stars illuminate the space and with the upmost care, he gently lowers him to a waiting cushion of mattresses.

Ianto moans and frowns, he is dreaming.

Jack sooths his frown with soft kisses, peppered across his brow. Ianto huffs and stiffs.

"Hey" Jack whispers, "It's OK. We're OK."

Ianto reaches for him, still more asleep that awake and the child-like pout is so endearing that Jack has no hesitation as he sinks into the embrace.

 _Oh, I forgot the mention … they're naked. Yeah?_

They had already consummated the relationship in the loading bay. Hard, fast and animalistic at Houston pretended not to listen to the heady cries of passion and whispered declarations of affection.

Gwen was pleased with the effect not only on herself but Rhys who celebrated with her in their own little bubble of delight, in their sleeping quarters later that day.

Ianto feels loose and aches in all the right places, a reminder that he is alive.

 _Still here God. If you're there, thanks for the assist._

Jack wonders what Ianto is thinking as a smile flitters across his face and he strokes Ianto's arms and torso affectionately to soothe and please.

Ianto's body shows that he is indeed pleased with that action and wouldn't mind some more.

As Jack drifts down to Ianto's joy stick we see a shooting star out the window. The brightness cutting through Ianto's eyelids and they flutter against his cheeks, his eyelashes like butterfly wings. Then they open and soft blue eyes look at the vast greatness of space.

Jack offers a little more space as well and Ianto squeezes his eyes shut as he arches in the bedding with a groan of lusty pleasure that encourages his partner to release his current cargo and drift up for a kiss.

Ianto's legs are open and as he relaxes, they drift up and around Jack. Still loose and open from their recent activities, Jack slides into Ianto's docking bay without too must fuss and Ianto giggles as Jack whispers instructions like he is berthing the vessel.

"Yarr to starboard" Jack mutters as he adjusts himself and seats himself deeper.

"Oh Cariad" Ianto sighs, throwing his head back and revelling in the sensation of being filled.

Jack licks his neck, "Prepare for revers thrusters on my mark."

More giggling as Jack whispers "Mark" then slowly withdraws most of his manhood then stops.

Ianto whimpers and wriggles as he looks up at his gorgeous shipmate and Jack grins.

"All power to the engines and commence docking procedure, in three, two …" Jack's eyes roll back as Ianto squeezes Jack's balls and whispers "One!"

Jack begins to fuck him, good and proper.

 _Thank you Houston, no problems here._

Ianto's panting and cries of pleasure fuel Jack's engines as he gets more physical and they float form the bedding into the room's main space.

Ianto either doesn't realise or doesn't care as he urges Jack on, whimpering with the need to unload.

They hit the window of the observation deck and Jack can see the stars outside as he is pounding into Ianto, better leverage now they're against something.

Ianto is seeing stars as well, howling as Jack hits that release button, again and again.

"Coming" Ianto whines as he shoots cum between them and Jack eagerly sucks it out of the airless vacuum is floats into, like a protein shake.

Ianto watches as Jack leans back and his mouth engulfs a wayward lump of spunk, god so fucking sexy with sweat glistening on his body and Ianto runs his hands over him before any can become airborne.

"Wanna bath" Ianto murmured as he pulls Jack back into his arms and Jack huffs as he begins pumping again, the taste of Ianto helping quicken his own completion.

Jack cries hoarsely as the third thrust is his undoing and he convulses in Ianto's arms as they float away from the glass and into the middle of the room.

Ianto's second orgasm is a surprise to them both, plastered together as Ianto's dick pulses between their stomachs, coating them with cum.

"Yeah" Jack answers, between kisses, "Wet wipes at dawn"

"Ah shit!" Ianto moans, "No dark side. Did we just deafen them again?"

"No need to worry Torchwood" came a breathy reply from Gwen, "Just me and Rhys on the wire, it's three in the morning here. Just us."

"Het little duckies" Jack answers with a smile in his voice.

"He…ahhhh…yeah….hi ….oh god woman, watch those …shit …"

"Rhys?" Ianto raises an eyebrow as Jack roars with laughter and they become the Voyeurs.

Goodnight Sweeties.


End file.
